THE 


EXPERIENCES   AND   OBSERVATIONS   OF  AN 
AMERICAN  AMATEUR  IN  EUROPE 


BY 

JAMES  JACKSON  JARVES 

AUTHOR  OF  "art  HINTS,"'  "  ART  STUDIES,"  "  THE  ART-IDEA;"   HONORARY  MEMBER 
OF  THE  ACADHMY  OF  FINE  ARTS,   FLORENCE,   ITALY,  E^C,  ETC. 


SALVE 


NEW  YORK 
PUBLISHED  BY  HURD  AND  HOUGHTON 

1869 


"Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 
James  Jackson  Jabves, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


EIVEBSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED   AND   PRINTED  BT 
H.  0.  HOUGHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


TO  WHOMSOEVER  IT  CONCERNS. 


I  OWE  it  to  myself  to  put  forth  this  book  as  the  more  matured 
result  of  studies  especially  directed  towards  the  general  intro- 
duction and  spread  of  Art  in  America,  the  particular  scope  and 
aim  of  which  were  given  in  previous  works,  particularly  the 
"  Art-Idea,"  of  which  these  "  Thoughts  "  are  intended  to  be  an 
extension  and  completion.  Less  I  could  not  do  to  put  my  object 
and  position  clearly  before  the  public,  although  it  may  be  already 
out  of  patience  with  the  theme  and  the  advocate.  I  wish  it  to 
be  a  final  effort  on  my  part,  and  to  pass  to  abler  hands,  while 
leaving  to  me  the  cheering  retrospection  of  having  broken 
ground  for  them.  With  this  expectation  let  us  take  comfort. 
Some  brief  portions  may  be  recognized  as  having  appeared  in 
our  own  and  English  magazines  this  year.  In  conclusion  I 
would  commend  whatever  there  is  true  and  lovely  in  Art,  as 
exemplified  in  these  Experiences,  to  the  observation  and  study 
of  my  young  children,  to  whom  I  most  earnestly  and  affection- 
ately dedicate  these  "  Thoughts "  as  so  many  crumbs  which 
have  fallen  to  their  father  from  the  Masters'  tables. 

Boston,  September,  1869. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Preliminary  Observations. 

Origin  and  Scope  of  the  Art-Idea.  —  Art  a  Human  Want.  —  Style  —  Taste. 
—  Definition  of  Art.  —  Artist  and  Craftsman.  —  The  True  Artist.  —  Gen- 
eric Motives.  —  Art  as  a  Vehicle  of  Knowledge.  —  Nature  the  Fact.  — 
Art  the  Type.  —  Final  Test  of  Art.  -  Ideas  in  Art.  —  The  World  without 
Beauty.  —  Decoration.  —  Conscience  in  Art.  —  Inspiration.  —  Temptation 
Nature  of  —  What  Art  should  be      ....  -t-  , 


CHAPTER  n. 
The  Pagan  and  Christian  Religious  Idea  in  Art. 
Religious  and  ^Esthetic  Ideas  distinct  but  in  Unity.  —  Origin  of  Sculpture. 

—  Egyptian,  Assyrian,  and  Indian  Art,  One-sided  Nature  of -Moses 
and  Mohammed,  their  Policy.  —  The  Hebrews.  —  Character  of  Greek 
Art.  -  Muse  of  Cortona.  —  Raphael's  Theory  of  Ideals.  —  A  perfect  Model. 

—  Beauty  and  Freedom  of  Grecian  Art.  — Every  Greek  a  latent  God.— 
Judaea  supplants  Greece.  —  Nature  of  Symbolical  Art.  -  The  Scarabeus. 

—  Phallus  and  Crucifix.  —  False  Art  of  Antiquity.  —  "  Artists  of  Filth." 

—  Polychromy.  —  Examples  of  best  Greek  Work.  -  Statue  and  Bust  Por- 
traiture. —  Roman  and  Grecian  Taste.  —  Sensuousness  and  Sensuality.  — 
Salutary  Efi^ects  of  Religion  in  Art.  —  Female  Nude.  —  First  Naked  Venus. 

—  Disregard  of  Landscape.  —  Basis  of  Greek  Taste  .... 


CHAPTER  HI. 
The  Art  and  Religion  of  Etruria. 
Etruscan  Character,  their  Cities  and  Sepulchres.  -  Rome  owed  its  Civili- 
zation to  Etruria.  -  Sites  of  their  Towns.  -  Contents  of  their  Tombs  - 
Root  of  Etruscan  Art  in  Realism.  -  Ideas  of  Death  and  a  Future  Life.  — 
The  Volunni  Sculptures.  —  Demonism.  —  A  Domestic  People.  —  Their 
Supernal  Images.  —  Furies.  -  Monument  of  a  Lady.  —  The  Chimera.  — 
Its  Meaning  

CHAPTER  IV. 
Comparison  between  Classical  and  Christian  Art. 
The  Art  of  Rome,  Ancient  and  Modern.  -  Art  concerns  History  on  the  Side 
ot  Its  Morality. -Its  Office  in  regard  to  the  Individual. -  Where  did 


viii 


CONTENTS. 


Paganism  leave  Art  V  —  How  did  Christianity  take  it  up  ?  —  Which  Form 
is  the  most  successful  ?  —  Pleasure  and  Pain  as  Motives  in  Art.  —  Chris- 
tian Hope  and  Fear,  Results  of,  aesthetically  considered.  —  Asceticism.  — 
Examples  in  Art.  —  St.  Francis.  —  Phases  of  Christian  Art.  —  The  Cata- 
combs. —  Theological.  —  Religious,  Renaissance,  Modern.  —  Powers's 
"Panoramic  Hell."  —  Dante's  "  Inferno."  —  Range  of  Greek  Art.  —  Its 
Ideal  Creations.  —  Christian  Art.  —  Heathen  and  Christian  Grotesque.  — 
Diogenes  and  St.  Jerome.  —  Bacchus,  Venus,  Mars,  Mercury,  Menelaus, 
and  Helen.  —  Repose  in  Art.  —  Michael  Angelo's  Statues.  —  How  good 
and  bad  Art  acts.  —  Christian  Mythology.  —  Ecstatic  or  Love  Aspect  of 
Christian  Art.  —  The  New  Jerusalem.  —  Zeus  and  Jehovah.  —  Wisdom 
through  Suffering.  ~  Representative  Christian  Artists.  —  Disposition  to 
Idolatry  of  all  Peoples.  —  Pagan  Ideals  contrasted  with  Christian.  —  The 
Almighty  as  a  Motive  in  Art.  —  Michael  Angelo's  and  Blake's  Treatment. 
—  Phidias.  —  Razzi's  "  Eve."  —  Michael  Angelo's  "  Eve  "  and  "  For- 
tune." —  The  Spiritual  Secret  of  his  Superiority  as  Man  and  Artist       .  49 


CHAPTER  V. 
Architecture. 

Culmination  of  Plastic  Art.  —  Functions  of  the  Architect.  —  Nature  of 
Architecture.  —  Civilization  has  no  fixed  Standard.  —  Central  America, 
Mexico,  Peru,  China,  Japan.  —  Hindoo  Architecture.  —  Egyptian.  —  Effect 
of  Race  and  Climate.  —  The  Jews.  —  Turks. — Arabs.  —  Principles  of 
Primitive  Architecture.  —  Cyclopean  and  Pelasgian  Edifices.  —  The  Key- 
note of  Grecian  Architecture ;  Character  of.  —  Roman.  —  The  Dome.  — 
Germs  of  Architecture.  —  Lombard,  Byzantine,  Romanesque,  Saracenic 
Styles.  —  Feudal  Styles.  —  Origin,  Aim,  Scope,  and  Varieties  of  the 
Gothic.  —  Its  Character.  —  The  Cathedral.  —  Effect  of  Printing  on  the 
Gothic.  —  The  Renaissance.  —  St.  Peter's  and  other  Examples.  —  Effect 
of  Protestantism  on  Ecclesiastical  Architecture.  —  Rococo  Styles.  —  Fash- 
ion. —  Bigotry  and  Infidelity  in  Architecture.  —  Honest  Renaissance.  — 
Modern  Gothic,  its  Uses  94 


CHAPTER  VI. 
Modern  Italian  Art,  Life,  and  Religion. 
Depressing  Effect  of  Books  on  Art.  —  Depressing  Effect  of  Protestantism.  — 
Why  Religious  Art  has  died  out. —Careers  of  the  "  Old  Masters."  — 
Connection  between  the  Religion  and  Art  of  a  People.  —  Failure  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  —  Italian  Traits  and  Character.  —  A  "  Pagus." 

—  Nature  of  the  Picturesque.  —  An  Italian  and  an  American  Home.  — 
What  the  Christian  Idea  has  accomplished.  —  Dethronement  of  Papacy. 

—  Duomo  of  Cortona.  —  Westminster  Abbey,  Abuses  of.  —  Monte  Uliveto. 

—  Arezzo.  —  Siena.  —  Mendicants  of  Pisa.  —  Razzi's  "  Epiphany."  — 
Hermitage  of  Gallicano.  —  Professors,  as  a  Caste.  —  Old  Ideas.  —  New 
Saints.  —  Italian  Artists.  —  Ussi.  —  Altamura.  —  Benvenuti.  —  Mediaeval 
Tombs  —  Dupr^.  —  Morelli.  —  Bastianini.  —  Landscape  and  Genre  Art. 

—  Vela.  —  The  "  Devil  "  in  Modem  Art.  —  Failure  of  the  Latin  Races    .  136 


CONTENTS. 


ix 


CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Art  of  Holland,  Belgium,  Spain,  and  Germany. 

PAGE 

Printing  displaces  Religious  Art.  —  How  the  Popes  put  out  Protestant  Ideas 
in  Italy.  —  Their  Return  now.  —  Artistic  Capacity  of  the  Spanish.  — 
Character  of  their  Schools.  —  Murillo,  Velasquez,  Cano,  Morales.  — 
School  of  Holland.  —  Democracy  in  Art.  —  Rembrandt.  —  Rubens.  — 
Belgium. —  " Rural  Fete"  by  Rubens.  —  Art  of  Germany. — Compari- 
son between  Books  and  Art.  —  Albert  Durer.  —  Holbein.  —  Overbeck.  — 
Cornelius.  —  Kaulbach.  —  The  Dusseldorf  Artists.  —  Results    .      .       .  176 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
English  Art. 

General  Ignorance  in  Europe  of  it.  — What  Englishmen  have  done  to  Civil- 
ize the  World.  —  The  American  in  Europe.  —  Causes  of  Insularity  of 
English  Art. — Influence  of  Fashion.  —  English  Sculpture.  —  Chantrey. 

—  Gibson.  —  English  Painting,  Nature  of.  —  Coloring,  Want  of.  — 
Water-color  Painting.  —  Representative  Artists.  —  Reynolds,  Gainsbor- 
ough, Wilson,  Hogarth,  Wilkie,  Leslie,  Landseer,  Leech,  "  Punch,"  Wil- 
liam Blake,  Millais,  Holman  Hunt,  Dante  Rosetti,  Mrs.  Benham  Hay, 
Turner,  Comparison  drawn  between  him  and  Blake.  —  Conclusion  .       .  190 

CHAPTER  IX. 
The  Art  of  Japan  and  China. 
Character  of  their  Art-design.  —  Illuminated  MSS.  and  Books  of  Design.  — 
Boun-Tij'o  and  Oksai.  —  His  Genius.  —  The  Albert  Durer  of  Japan.  — 
Analysis  of  Japanese  Design.  — Oksai  and  Phidias  in  Contrast.  —  Demon- 
ism  of  Japan.  —  Native  Humor.  —  Realistic  Design.  —  Sensualism.  — 
Jebis,  or  Neptune.  —  God  of  Longevity  221 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Painters  of  France. 
Foreign  Element.  —  Early  MS.  Illuminated.  —  Poverty  of  French  Art.  — 
Clouet,  Claude,  Poussin,  Le  Sueur;  their  Style.  —  Period  of  Louis 
XIV.  —  Mignard.  —  Harlotry  in  Art.  —  Vanloo  and  the  Animal  Painters. 
Greuze-  —  Joseph  Vernet.  —  The  Art  of  the  Revolution.  —  School  of 
David.  —  Gericault,  Girodet,  Gros,  G(5rard,  Prud'hon,  Le  Brun.  —  Salon 
Carre.  — H.  Vernet.  —  Color  in  French  Art.  —  The  Spiritual  Element.  — 
Ary  Scheffer.  —  Flandrin.  —  Delaroche.  —  Troyon.  —  Rosa  Bonheur.  — 
Ingres.  —  Decamps.  —  Fleury.  —  A  Picture  by  Giorgione.  —  Couture.  — 
Delacroix. —  His  Genius.  —  Muller's  great  Painting.  —  G^rome  and  his 
School.  — Meissonnier.  —  The  Lascivious  -  Pretty.  —  Baudry.  —  Boudier. 

—  The  Obscene  in  French  Art.  —  Still-life.  —  DesgofFe.  — -  Fromentin.  — 
Domestic-Genre,  —  Frere,  Merle,  Browne.  —  Men  of  Feeling.  —  Jules 
Breton  and  Millet.  —  Lambron's    Virgin  and  Child."  —  The  Painter  of 


X 


CONTENTS. 


Ugliness.  —  Ribot.  —  The  Ocean  in  French  Art.  —  Nature  and  the  Land- 
scapists.  —  Lambinet.  —  Auguste  Bonheur.  —  Theodore  Rousseau,  Diaz, 
Corot,  the  Sentimentalist.  —  Couture,  the  Realist.  —  Dor^,  Analysis  of  his 
Genius.  —  Summary  of  the  School  and  its  Condition       .       .       .       .  230 

CHAPTER  XI. 
FiiENCH  Sculpture  and  Akchitecture. 

Celhni's  "  Nymph."  —  Goujon's  "  Diana."  —  Pseudo-classical  Work.  —  Por- 
trait-Statuary. —  Royalty  as  Jupiter  Scapin.  —  Pierre  Puget.  — Decorative 
and  Monumental  Sculpture.  —  Modern  Paris  vs.  Old  Paris:  Gain  and 
Loss.  —  Polic}^  of  Louis  Napoleon.  —  Result  in  Art.  —  Statistics  of  the 
Parisian  "New  Jerusalem."  —  "La  Grace  de  Dieu."  —  Assumptions  of 
French  Civilization.  —  Its  Present  Standard,  and  Causes  thereof      .      .  282 

CHAPTER  XIL 

Art  in  America. 

Condition  and  Needs.  —  Period  of  West.  —  The  Intermediate  Stage.  —  Pres- 
ent Stage.  —  Wrong  Estimate. — Average  Artist  as  easily  produced  as 
Average  Writer.  —  The  Average  Patron.  —  The  Mechanical  and  Com- 
mercial Spirit  of  American  Art.  —  Machine  Labor.  —  Story's  Theory.  — 
An  Old  Error  in  a  New  Shape.  —  Its  Fallacy.  —  Cheap  Art  always  Poor 
Art.  —  Genius  conceives  quickly,  executes  slowly.  —  Our  New-school 
Men.  —  Leutze  and  the  Melo-dramatists.  —  Effect  of  the  Great  Exposition 
of  1867,  on  American  Art.  —  Our  Landscapists.  —  Raphael's  "  Apollo  " 
and  "  Marsyas."  —  Mediocrity  of  American  Sculpture.  —  The  Sense  of  the 
Beautiful  in  the  Italian  Mind  contrasted  with  that  of  the  Ridiculous  in 
the  American.  —  The  Lincoln  Monument.  —  Statue  of  St.  Alessio.  —  Bos- 
ton Street-statues.  —  How  to  secure  Better  Sculpture.  —  Cost  of  Sculp- 
ture.—  Examples  of  Prices.  —  H.  Hosmer.  —  Studies  from  Life. —  Our 
Equestrian  Statues.  —  Mills,  Ward,  Ball,  Jackson,  Brown,  Story.  —  The 
American  Standard  of  Knowledge  of  Art.  —  Style  of  our  Architecture.  — 
London  Criticisms.  — Educational  Advantages  of  Galleries  and  Museums. 
—  Idealists  in  Sculpture.  —  Gould,  Brackett,  ConoUy      .  •     .       .       .  291 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

The  Minor  Arts.  —  Ornament  and  Decoration. 

Final  Object  of  Ornament.  —  Esthetic  Repose.  —  Misplaced  Ornament.  — 
Rule  of  Fashion.  —  The  Gossip  of  Art.  —  Asiatic  and  European  and 
American  Instincts  of  Beauty  and  Taste.  —  Independent  Taste.  — Moral 
Influences  of  Museums.  —  Classical  and  Pagan  Ornamentation.  —  Oriental 
Porcelains.  —  Enamels  and  Straw-work.  —  Moresque  Ornament.  —  Lucca 
della  Robbia  Ware. —  Palissy.  —  Limoges  and  B3'zantine  Enamels. — 
Italian  Majolica.  —  Venetian  Glass.  —  Renaissant  Work.  —  Bronzes, 
Gems,  Metals,  Leather,  etc.  — Wedgewood.  —  Kensington  and  British 
Museums  and  Schools  of  Design.  —  Our  Opportunity       .       .       •  .320 


CONTENTS. 


xi 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
Amateurshif. 

PAGE 

Dilettanteisra  and  Amateurship,  Character  of.  —  American  Critics.  —  What 
is  needed  to  make  a  Sound  Connoisseur.  —  Foreign  Galleries  and  their 
Management.  —  Restoration  of  Pictures,  False  and  Genuine. —  Statistics 
of  Galleries.  —  Their  Value  as  Productive  Capital.  — ^Esthetic  Bottom  of 
Americans.  —  Foreign  Amateurs.  —  The  Born  Collector.  —  His  Risks  and 
Pleasures.  —  Swindling  and  Forgeries  in  Art.  —  Noted  Instances.  —  The 
Moreau  Case,  and  Justice  in  Pans.  —  A  Genuine  Leonardo.  —  Letter  of 
Holman  Hunt.  —  Yale  School  of  Fine  Arts.  —  Appeal  in  behalf  of  the 
"  Old  Masters."   339 


CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Art  of  the  Futuke. 
Art  the  Material  Representation  of  the  Ideal.  —  Love  and  Religion  its  Basis. 
—  Imagination  controls  it.  —  Retrospective  View  of  Pagan,  Mediaeval, 
and  Renaissant  Art. —  Two  Ways  of  Happiness:  the  Demoniac  Ideal 
and  the  Beautiful  Ideal.  —  Spirit  of  our  Century.  —  Fresh  Heavens 
opened.  —  The  Old  Flow  of  Theology.  —  St.  Francis  and  the  Death  of  the 
Body.  —  The  Pagan  Love  of  Diversion.  — Mediasval  do.  —  Modern  Inti- 
delity  and  Sadness  in  Life.  —  Fruit  of  American  Institutions.  —  Immortal 
Moments. —  Theodore  Parker's  Theory  of  Use.  —  Its  Foolishness. — 
Franklin  and  Michael  Aiigelo.  —  Rubens.  —  Contrast  in  uses  between 
Physical  Comfort  and  Mental  and  Spiritual  Welfare.  —  Examples.  — 
Ideas  and  Emotions.  —  What  Fine-art  accomplishes.  —  The  Future  Art 
of  America  365 


CRUMBS  OF  ART. 


CHAPTER  1. 

PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS. 

INCE  1852,  I  have  studied  Art,  chiefly  to  Purpose  of- 
find  out  the  part  it  has  sustained  in  effete  ^""^^ 
civilizations,  and  to  ascertain  its  present  condition: 
with  reference  to  the  future.  The  satisfaction  de- 
rived from  this  study  amply  compensates  its  time- 
and  cost.  But  it  would  be  incomplete,  if  the  results  might  not 
be  made  useful  to  others.  I  shall  try  to  give  a  succinct  view  of 
the  subject  as  a  whole,  tracing  its  varied  expressions  to  our 
time,  hoping  to  make  the  meaning,  origin,  and  aim  of  Art  more 
clear  to  the  common  mind  than  it  seems  to  be  at  present,  as 
well  as  to  proffer  some  hints  for  its  culture.  It  would  be  pre- 
sumptuous to  offer  this  little  work  to  the  consideration  of  the 
erudite  of  any  nation.  In  my  own  country  there  are  few  who/ 
give  Art  any  serious  attention  ;  fewer  still,  it  may  be,  to  sym- 
pathize with  my  attempt  or  accept  my  conclusions.  Yet  the 
topic  is  attractive  to  many.  Those  who  are  unable  to  study 
the  history  of  Art  at  its  native  sources  may  be  willing  to  follow 
me  in  my  experiences,  while  freely  exercising  their  own  judg- 
ments.   To  them,  therefore,  I  address  myself 

What  is  the  origin  and  scope  of  the  art-idea  ?  What  has  it 
done  for  men,  and  what  may  it  still  do  ?  What  are  its  rela- 
tions to  nature,  science,  and  religion  ?  How  are  communities 
made  better  or  worse  by  it  ?  To  what  extent  is  it  indispen- 
sable to  our  individual  happiness?  These  questions  cover  all 
the  ground  we  need  examine. 

Our  first  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact  that  words  are  vague 
in  the  ratio  of  their  generalization.  Comprehensive  nouns  like 
Art,  Science,  Religion,  Philosophy,  or  God,  convey  to  different 


2 


ORIGIN  OF  ART. 


minds  varied  conceptions.  Each  degree  of  knowledge,  and 
even  of  temperament,  has  its  formula  of  expression.  Thus 
language  is  largely  conventional.  As  minds  grow,  the  signifi- 
cance of  words  changes  to  them.  I  cannot,  therefore,  hope  to 
be  understood  by  all  exactly  as  I  could  desire  ;  but  I  may 
make  my  use  of  essential  terms  intelligible  to  thinkers. 

Art  has  its  origin  deep  in  a  human  want.    I  would 

Art  a  hu-  •  i 

man  want,  not  cxclude  auimals  from  a  certam  consciousness  of  its 

The  ideal.  n  .1  .  •  i  1 

presence,  tor  even  they  enjoy  something  above  and 
beyond  physical  functions,  indicative  of  a  receptive  sense  of 
pleasure,  as  if  they  too  welcomed  their  ideal.  If  man  were 
solely  a  being  of  abstract  reason,  the  exercise  of  thought  would 
be  sufficient  to  his  happiness.  But  he  has  also  heart  and 
imagination  which  demand  gratification.  Both  clamor  for  more 
ithan  they  ever  obtain.  This  unfulfilled  wish  constitutes  their 
ideal,  or  that  subtile  aspiration  of  the  soul  which  is  the  essence 
■of  noble  art.  This  it  is  which  gives  a  halo  to  the  beauty  it 
evokes  ;  which  fires  the  sentiments  and  exalts  the  intellect,  im- 
parting an  undefinable  joy  as  the  object  responds  to  our  amor- 
ous appeal :  a^ language  felt  rather  than  heard.  Our  happiness 
is  the  more  complete  inasmuch  that  it  is  dissociated  with  notions 
of  labor  or  utility.  Fine  art  suggests  neither.  As  with  the 
fragrance  of  a  flower  or  the  radiance  of  a  sunset,  we  inhale  its 
sweetness  in  unconscious  gratitude,  forming  the  while  close 
friendships  with  its  images.  No  one  need  expect  to  compre- 
hend art  in  its  ultimate  sense,  unless  he  is  capable  of  receiving 
its  impressions  as  spontaneously  and  supersensuously  as  he  would 
those  of  love  ;  for  art  is  first  passion,  then  conviction.  Whence 
its  power  is  not  to  be  ciphered.  Ends,  not  means,  it  affirms. 
Unless  we  apprehend  the  spiritual  element,  our  satisfaction 
must  limit  itself  to  its  technical  and  material  functions. 

Both  science  and  art  aspire  to  sublime  things  ;  the  former  to 
discover  and  use,  the  latter  to  represent  and  suggest.  Science 
tells  us  of  what  salts  a  tear  is  made,  but  can  give  no  insight  into 
its  cause,  as  can  art.  Analyzing  the  excretions  of  the  kidneys, 
it  decides  with  mathematical  accuracy  on  the  relative  activity 
of  mind  and  muscle,  informing  us  how  much  passion,  thought, 
or  repose  a  man  has  had  in  a  given  time,  and  even  claims  that 
thought  itself  is  only  one  form  of  matter.  In  this  way  it  treats 
movement  and  character,  which  art  also  embodies  in  solid  ma- 
terial in  a  diffi^rent  fashion.  We  can  thus  understand  the  kin- 
ship of  art  and  science,  and  their  diverging  technical  offices. 


PHOTOGRAPHY  NOT  ART. 


3 


Some  of  these  are  confounded  in  popular  apprehension  by 
an  endeavor  to  enhance  the  credit  of  certain  occupations. 
Photography  is  not  art,  but  a  process  of  science  to  which  art 
may  add  grace  and  beauty.  As  commonly  practiced,  it  is 
chemical  handici-aft,  and  not  to  be  spoken  of  as  art,  though, 
under  its  guidance,  capable  of  making  one  forget  its  scientific 
origin  in  gesthetic  satisfaction.  Further,  it  is  a  useful  servant 
of  the  artist,  in  many  familiar  ways,  besides  disseminating  copies 
of  the  works  of  art  in  a  cheap  and  portable  form.  Chromo- 
lithography  is  another  manual  process  of  less  importance  and 
truth  of  characterization.  We  should  not  confuse  the  shadow 
with  the  substance  of  art  any  more  than  we  do  the  abstract  idea 
with  the  printed  word. 

Cookery,  hair-dressing,  and  tailoring,  owing  to  the  transceden- 
tal  importance  given  them  in  France,  have  trespassed  on  the 
domain  of  art.  In  that  country,  tailors,  cooks,  and  barbers  are 
often  called  artists.  This  misnomer  may  be  exhilarating  to  in- 
dividual vanity ;  but  it  does  not  elevate  these  occupations  though 
it  does  tend  to  degrade  art,  by  vulgarizing  its  associations  and 
lowering  its  mental  standard.  Moreover,  it  is  a  sad  commentary 
on  the  aspirations  of  a  people  to  permit  any  handicraft  to  rank 
as  art ;  for  it  virtually  says  that  muscle  is  entitled  to  the  highest 
honors  of  mind,  and  puts  the  servant  in  the  place  of  his  master. 
To  cook  a  meal,  stitch  clothes,  or  dress  hair  no  more  makes  an 
artist  than  to  blow  glass  or  shoe  horses.  There  is  no  need  of 
jumbling  art  and  manual  labor.  One  is  the  product  of  thought, 
imagination,  feeling  ;  the  other  is  work  done  according  to  rule, 
receipt,  or  pattern,  in  which  dexterity  of  hand  is  of  more  ac- 
count than  mental  action.  Art  can  benefit  a  handicraft  by  mak- 
ing its  product  ornamental  and  pleasurable  instead  of  plain  or 
ugly ;  but  ugliness  and  coarseness,  as  we  perceive  in  things  in 
general,  do  not  diminish  their  absolute  utility. 

An  artist  is  called  to  higher  functions  than  the  Artist  and 
craftsman.  By  the  same  election  no  cook,  barber,  or  'Jjf  ?J^e  aV«- 
photographer  can  be  an  artist,  or  else  he  would  not 
be  what  he  is.  Whenever  handicraft  aspires  to  the  ornamental, 
the  artist  must  be  called  in.  Calling  charcoal  a  diamond  does  not 
make  it  one ;  nevertheless  the  smutty  wood  can  be  transformed 
into  the  brilliant  gem.  No  man  of  taste  is  taken  in  by  names, 
for  ugliness  does  not  become  beauty  by  the  addition  of  a  lie. 
I  emphasize  these  points  now,  that  I  may  not  be  misunderstood 
later  in  my  application  of  the  art -idea. 


4 


STYLE  IN  ART. 


As  there  are  many  artificers  who  boast  themselves  artists, 
so  there  are  many  men  who  pass  current  as  artists  in  virtue 
of  prodigious  self-assertion,  maybe  deception,  and  turning  out 
work  as  a  printer  prints  books.  They  create  nothing;  recast 
nothing ;  fulfill  no  law  of  art ;  but  execute  terribly,  in  acres  of 
canvas  and  tons  of  stone,  which,  being  called  pictures  and  statues, 
impose  on  the  credulous  by  sheer  nomenclature.  These  forgeries 
abound  in  all  countries  and  times;  for  art,  being  pleasanter  in 
garb  and  more  readily  perverted  into  shams,  has  more  parasites 
than  science.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  rule  whereby  to  detect 
the  real  artist.  His  tools  are  in  his  brain  rather  than  his 
hands.  His  creed  is  in  his  work,  not  his  cash-book.  Having 
a  detective  taste  for  beauty  in  any  guise,  he  accumulates  artistic 
things  even  less  as  practical  hints  than  as  objects  to  be  enjoyed. 
No  matter  how  famous  an  artist  is  in  type  or  lucky  in  "  orders," 
unless  he  shows  style  in  his  work  and  taste  in  his  home,  he  is 
no  true  man,  but  only  a  shrewd  guller  of  the  public.  I  would 
gladly  omit  all  reference  to  fictitious  work,  for  the  same  reason 
that  1  would  not  waste  eyesight  on  it ;  but  some  examples  will 
be  needed  to  correct  common  misconceptions. 
Style  taste  Style  I  mean  more  particularly  that  character 

definition  of  given  to  the  artist's  work  which  comes  of  tliought, 
whether  new  in  conception  and  treatment,  or  the  re- 
casting of  older  ideas  and  forms  into  fresh  life.  The  style  of 
a  school  is  an  aggregation  of  the  forces  of  its  masters.  In  art, 
therefore,  it  is  a  positive,  indispensable  element,  as  character  is, 
to  manhood.  Taste  enters  into  style  in  the  same  way  that 
polite  manners  help  form  the  gentleman.  There  may  be  style 
with  but  little  taste  ;  still  it  is  essential  to  complete  work.  By 
putting  into  harmony  diverse  forms  and  qualities,  it  acts  as  a 
barometer  of  art-feeling  and  intelligence.  A  man  without  taste 
is  a  mental  cripple.  His  aesthetic  faculty  being  unformed,  he  is 
virtually  deaf  and  blind  to  the  most  refined  pleasures  of  life. 

No  one  will  deny  that  the  most  intense  and  dilFused  of  human 
joys  spring  from  the  passion  of  love.  Without  pretending  to 
define  aft  in  precise  terms,  I  venture  to  call  it  the  love  of  the 
soul,  in  the  sense  that  science  is  its  law.  As  a  civilizing  pro- 
cess, each  is  the  complement  of  the  other.  Practically,  art  is  the 
ornamental  side  of  life,  as  science  is  its  utilitarian ;  the  one 
having  to  do  with  the  appearance  of  things,  the  other  with  their 
substance.  Whatever  is  produced  by  man  of  which  beauty  is 
the  main  feature,  and  enjoyment  the  chief  aim,  that  has  its  origin 


REALISM:  IDEALISM. 


5 


in  the  art-idea ;  while  things  of  simple  use  are  the  fruit  of  the 
opposite  faculty.  This  is,  however,  only  a  superficial  view.  A 
more  profound  apprehension  of  their  attributes  makes  science  the 
representative  of  Divine  Wisdom,  and  art  the  image  of  Divine 
Love ;  both  bringing  down  to  the  level  of  our  senses,  by  a  sort 
of  incarnation,  the  unseen  and  infinite. 

Two  fundamental  distinctions  underlie  art.  I  call  Realism  and 
them  Realism  and  Idealism,  from  want  of  clearer  ^G^nelk'mo- 
words  to  express  my  meaning.  The  former  applies 
to  the  portraiture  of  the  external  world,  and  partakes  more  or 
less  of  copying  and  imitation.  It  affects  local  and  particular 
truths  ;  is  circumscribed  in  action  and  motive  ;  inclines  to  inven- 
tories of  things  in  its  poorer  estate ;  is  apt  to  be  cold,  pedantic, 
minutely  fine,  or  broadly  rough  ;  and  seldom  rises  above  consum- 
mate dexterity  and  intellectual  appreciation. 

Idealism  bases  itself  on  universal  truths.  It  deals  more  with 
emotions  and  ideas  than  facts  and  action,  opposing  imagination 
to  perception,  on  which  realism  chiefly  rests.  Inventing,  sug- 
gesting, creating,  the  former  is  the  poetry  of  fine  art ;  the  latter, 
its  prose.  How  to  combine  perfect  execution  with  profound 
thought,  and  while  rendering  temporal  and  special  truths  to  endow 
them  with  the  spirit  of  the  ideal  and  eternal,  is  the  great  prob- 
lem of  art.  Great  artists  ever  struggle  to  solve  it.  But  owing 
to  the  bias  which  the  mind  early  takes  for  one  or  the  other  of 
these  phases,  and  the  limitations  of  their  materials,  few  succeed 
in  combining  their  best  points. 

The  motives  which  determine  the  generic  directions  of  art  are 
of  three  kinds.  They  may  be  classed  as  follows,  not  to  define 
a  system,  but  only  to  aid  in  recognizing  the  dominant  character- 
istics of  an  artist  or  period.  In  comprehending  at  a  glance  the 
ruling  motive,  and  placing  ourself  in  sympathy  with  it,  we  not 
only  enjoy  more  heartily  the  artist's  purpose,  but  quicker  come 
to  sound  judgment.  Hence  any  simple  rules  to  aid  the  obser- 
vation of  the  spectator  are  useful.  With  art,  as  with  speech, 
misunderstandings  arise  by  not  promptly  understanding  what  is 
meant. 

These  generic  motives  are,  first.  Decoration  ;  having  for  its 
object  ornament,  and  addressing  itself  chiefly  to  the  sensuous 
faculties.  i?his  is  the  most  common,  and  enters  largely  into 
food,  clothing,  furniture,  building,  manufacture,  and  polite  man- 
ners ;  in  fine,  into  everything  which  besides  its  utility  has  scope 
for  beauty. 


6 


WHAT  ART  IS. 


Secondly,  Illustration  ;  teaching,  representation,  preserva- 
tion, and  reminiscence  under  aesthetic  forms  being  its  chief  aims. 
This  includes  more  especially  landscape,  historical,  and  dramatic 
art,  and  portraiture,  whether  realistic  or  idealistic. 

Thirdly,  Revelation,  in  the  sense  of  invention,  suggestion, 
creation,  and  discovery,  inspired  by  the  imagination.  All  super- 
sensuous  and  supernal  imagery  that  has  no  exact  likeness  to 
things  in  the  world  about  us  comes  under  this  distinction.  Its 
real  mission  is  spiritual  truth,  but  not  unseldom  it  is  prostituted 
to  sensualism  and  diabolism,  for  it  goes  to  either  extreme  just  as 
it  is  controlled  by  a  pure  or  a  debauched  mind. 

Frequently  the  above  distinctions  commingle,  but  in  general 
one  of  them  marks  the  ruling  thought.  Art  of  itself  is  neither 
good  nor  evil,  but  passively  obeys  the  human  will,  so  that  it 
affords  a  sure  test  of  culture  and  morals,  individually  and  na- 
tionally. I  include  in  it  polite  literature,  poetry,  music,  and  the 
drama,  because  in  each,  as  in  painting  and  sculpture,  either 
forms,  colors,  sounds,  action,  or  thought  are  given  under  pleasur- 
able combinations,  and  we  are  harmoniously  let  into  the  myste- 
ries of  nature,  as  Orpheus  led  the  beasts,  trees,  and  stones  to  fol- 
low him  by  the  sweetness  of  his  lyre.  Whatever,  therefore,  has 
the  power  so  to  affect  mankind,  which  is  neither  the  direct  prod- 
uct of  pure  reason  or  science,  nor  is  the  manifest  form  of  na- 
ture itself,  but  suggests  it  or  reveals  the  unseen  in  aesthetic 
guise,  that  is  Art  ! 

The  hidden  force  of  art  lies  in  its  kinship  to  our  desires.  It 
has  affinities  to  satisfy  every  grade  of  intelligence  and  feeling. 
We  may  gauge  our  aesthetic  fullness  by  the  stages  of  enjoy- 
ment through  which  we  go  from  a  primary  liking  of  a  Carlo 
Dolce,  Claude,  or  Boucher  to  an  appreciation  of  Titian,  Turner, 
or  Leonardo  ;  by  preferring  the  profound  thought  of  Michael 
Angelo  to  the  sweeter  compositions  of  Raphael,  and  lastly  the 
mystic  spirituality  of  Blake  to  the  grotesque  sensualism  of 
Dore. 

But  appreciation  is  of  slow  growth.  Shakespeare's  plays 
would  be  jargon  to  a  Hottentot,  the  music  of  Beethoven  an 
unmeaning  noise,  and  Buonarotti's  "Night  and  Morning"  rud@' 
idols.  Art  demands  a  nice  discipline  of  eye  and  ear  even  to 
learn, its  alphabet.  If  we  are  to  get  out  of  it  anything  besides 
vague  sensation,  the  physical  organs  must  be  trained  to  observe 
with  exactitude,  and  the  mental  to  discover  its  organic  consti- 
tution, and  to  comprehend  its  philosophy.    An  experienced  eye 


CAPACITY  OF  ART. 


7 


is  a  bad  critic,  despite  the  often  quoted  story  of  the  bird  that 
pecked  at  the  grapes  of  Zeuxis.  I  have  known  one  fly  into  a 
room  and  try  to  sip  honey  from  the  wall-paper,  not  leaving  it 
until  it  had  tested  each  coarsely  painted  flower,  and  got  well 
bruised  for  its  stupidity.  We  must  not  estimate  art  by  its 
effects  on  the  uncultivated.  Although  in  one  sense  an  instinct, 
as  science  is  a  problem,  few  are  born  acutely  sensible  to  its  im- 
pressions, while  every  one  has  need  of  knowledge  to  justify  his 
faith.  The  common  eye  sees  skin-deep  only  into  anything. 
Yet  art  discloses  the  soul  of  artist  and  spectator,  and  expands 
both  if  they  but  consent. 

Few  take  note  of  its  capacity  to  promote  domestic  pirst  notions 
refinement  and  happiness  in  the  arrangement  of  house-  confused. 
hold  effects  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  symmetry,  propor- 
tion, and  balance  of  parts ;  give  heed  to  tone,  harmony,  and  con- 
trast in  color,  or  obey  that  subtile  dictation  of  taste  which  re- 
sults, like  concord  in  music,  in  an  harmonious  unity  of  variety. 
More  money  is  spent  in  perpetuating  ugliness  or  in  crude  work 
than  would,  if  properly  directed,  secure  to  every  town  a  fiee 
school  of  taste  in  its  edifices  and  grounds.  Peoples  are  educated  to 
a  disregard  of  sesthetic  rules  as  palpable  as  would  be  the  viola- 
tion of  those  of  grammar  if  all  the  schools  taught  cockney  Eng- 
lish. For  three  centuries  the  artistic  instincts,  so  conspicuous 
in  the  classical  and  middle  ages,  have  been  remorsely  degraded, 
until  the  feeling  for  color  is  well  nigh  lost,  and  the  sense  of  the 
beautiful  in  form  so  obfuscated  as  to  make  homeliness  appear  to 
be  the  passionate  choice  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Our  first  notions  of  science  or  art  are  confused  and  superfi- 
cial. Intellect  rises  to  the  dignity  of  a  judge  only  by  severe 
study.  Taste  is  not  the  spontaneous  gift  of  Heaven,  like  Wis- 
dom fully  armed  from  the  head  of  Jove.  Our  instincts  may  be 
radically  pure  or  vicious,  and  aid  or  embarrass  our  progress,  but 
taste  itself  is  the  result  of  the  culture  of  the  aesthetic  faculties, 
as  grammar  is  that  of  the  rules  of  language.  Training  must 
therefore  precede  the  comprehension  as  well  as  execution  of 
fine  art.  It  is  a  common  fallacy  that  art  has  simply  to  please 
the  spectator,  its  works  being  good  or  bad  just  as  they  affect 
him,  whether  he  is  qualified  to  judge  or  not.  Besides  taste,  ac- 
quaintance with  its  history  and  philosophy  is  necessary  to  the 
critic.  An  artist  may  have  excellent  taste,  and  be  wanting  in 
the  latter.  Indeed,  few  artists  outside  of  their  own  systems 
have  shown  themselves  to  be  competent  critics  in  art,  or  com- 


8 


ESSENTIAL  TO  EDUCATION. 


plete  in  their  work.  In  order  to  appreciate  the  entire  func- 
tions, they  must  inform  themselves  of  its  moral  and  social  as- 
pects in  all  times,  and  the  part  it  has  filled  in  history.  But  with 
rare  exceptions  they  devote  themselves  exclusively  to  its  technical 
qualities,  limiting  their  knowledge  of  these  to  their  own  period 
or  special  aim. 

Art  knowl-  The  importance  of  art  as  a  vehicle  of  knowledge, 
is  less  appreciated,  because  its  results  are  so  common. 
But  were  all  its  representations  of  objects,  deeds,  and  men, 
which  are  out  of  the  range  of  our  sight,  obliterated,  the  most  of 
the  globe  and  its  history  would  no  more  exist  to  our  material 
senses  than  the  scenery  and  affairs  of  other  planets.  As  com- 
pared with  form  and  color,  words,  in  the  mind's  infancy,  are  but 
an  imperfect  means  of  conveying  adequate  notions  of  things. 
Art  becomes  an  essential  of  education.  Besides  getting  from 
it  our  first  impressions  of  whatever  we  cannot  see,  we  receive 
the  primary  lessons  of  a  higher  life  than  that  of  earth.  Yet  as 
regards  instruction  its  office  is  only  initial.  The  earliest  alpha- 
bets were  rude  pictures  or  symbols.  Before  the  mental  sight 
is  opened  to  distinguish,  in  the  artificial  signs  we  call  letters, 
their  hidden  thought,  our  lessons  are  given  either  by  the  things 
themselves  or  their  pictorial  forms.  Except  as  revelation,  its 
highest  function,  it  fulfills  an  inferior  office  compared  with  ab- 
stract science.  To  this  it  is  what  the  body  is  to  the  spirit,  an 
incarnation  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  finite  in  man. 

The  natural  world  presents  one  aspect  of  divine  teaching; 
art  another.  One  is  the  sculpture,  painting,  music,  and  poetry  of 
God ;  in  fine.  His  mind  let  down  to  the  level  of  our  com- 
prehension. Matter  without  spirit  would  be  inert,  soulless. 
There  would  be  no  God  in  it.  So  with  art.  The  matter  or 
vehicle  must  be  impregnated  with  spirit,  or  the  thought  which 
gives  its  being.  Otherwise,  we  get  only  the  dead  forms  of 
things,  which  no  more  represent  their  life  than  clothing  makes 
the  man.  Art  is  the  means  given  him  to  embody  his  ideas  of 
himself,  the  universe,  and  their  Author.  In  the  exercise  of  this 
indirect,  creative  faculty,  the  artist  has  delegated  to  him  a  divine 
function,  to  aid  in  training  his  fellow  men  for  a  more  elevated 
existence.  But  few  recognize  their  credentials  or  compel  recog- 
nition of  the  world.  Neither  artist  nor  the  world  is  yet  ready 
for  greatest  art.  The  best  we  have  is  only  a  hint  of  what  may 
come.  It  is  a  duty  to  cultivate  the  power  of  discerning  eter- 
nal truths.  Alas  !  the  commorT  practice  is  to  seize  hold  of  a 
farthing  candle,  and  shout,  Behold  the  sun  ! 


NATURE,  THE  FACT— ART,  THE  TYPE.  9 

The  first  interview  with  true  art  begets  emotions  not  less 
spontaneous  than  those  of  the  natural  world,  when  we  abandon 
ourselves  with  equal  confidence  to  its  influence.  But  it  varies 
in  character,  because  of  its  more  direct  appeal  to  the  intellect, 
or  to  our  sympathy  with  humanity.  Nature  incites  to  love  and 
awe  of  a  power  past  finding  out,  though  within  the  scope  of 
human  enjoyment.  Art  talks  the  universal  language  of  our 
species,  and,  being  of  man's  invention,  is  on  the  level  of  his 
intelligence.  While  acknowledging  its  capacity,  we  comprehend 
its  machinery.  There  is  therefore  in  our  delight  always  a  mix- 
ture of  the  finite,  which  debars  it  from  rivaling  Nature's  vision 
of  the  infinite  in  profundity  of  emotional  power.  She  brings 
home  to  us  our  helplessness  and  consequent  dependence  on  the 
mysterious  Intelligence  that  guides  matter.  Art  stimulates  the 
faculties  to  a  practical  development.  We  criticise  the  artist 
from  intellectual  provocation.  But  we  worship  Nature,  the 
teacher  of  art  and  image  of  the  cause  of  all  things.  It  is  im- 
portant to  understand  the  distinction  drawn  between  art,  man's 
forms  of  matter,  and  nature,  God's  forms,  because  the  distance 
between  the  two  as  regards  tangible  results  mast  always  be  in 
the  ratio  of  the  originating  force  of  the  one  and  the  imitative 
skill  of  the  other.  Any  language  used  in  trying  to  give  just 
ideas  of  art  must  be  construed  in  that  secondary  scale  which  art 
itself  holds  to  Nature,  and  not  as  claiming  it  as  a  rival  even 
when  most  asserting  its  spirituality.  Nature  is  the  fact  itself ; 
art  the  type  of  the  fact. 

On  the  other  hand,  beware  of  depreciating  art  overmuch  in 
comparison  with  nature.  It  has  its  origin  in  mind,  which  is  the 
divinest  gift  we  yet  know,  and,  when  true,  must  reflect  the  pater- 
nal features.  Furthermore,  in  our  eagerness  to  realize  our  ideal, 
allowance  must  be  made  for  those  limitations  which  come  of  the 
intractability  and  decay  of  its  vehicles,  and  its  feebleness  of  ex- 
ecution and  resources  in  contrast  with  nature.  Such  considera- 
tions will  help  to  a  right  estimate  of  the  difficulties  of  art  and  ap- 
preciation of  its  triumphs.  We  need  not,  however,  refuse  to  test 
its  power  over  the  heart  imtil  we  have  canvassed  its  claims  intel- 
lectually and  technically.  The  first  question  is.  What  does  the 
artist  mean  us  to  see,  know,  and  feel  ?  We  owe  it  to  him  to  get 
at  once  at  his  intent.  He  is  most  successful  when  we  seize  it 
spontaneously.  In  beginning  with  art,  walk  humbly.  Like 
nature,  it  primarily  addresses  the  emotions.  Criticism  is  better 
deferred  until  we  have  learned  something  of  ourselves  through 


10 


MISTAKES  OUR  BEST  TEACHERS. 


the  language  that  moves  us.  For  our  own  habit  of  enjoyment 
it  is  well  CO  be  more  alive  to  its  merits  than  defects.  Bad 
Final  test  of  indeed  must  be  the  art  that  has  no  power  to  please. 
i£as  in  art.  ^^^^  ^"^^  ^^^^  Capacity  to  make  us  happy. 
The  world     Xhe  foundation  of  appreciation  is  soundest  when  resju- 

without  111  1-  1  .         T  ,  p  , 

beauty.  latcd  by  morality  cultivated  to  a  keen  sense  of  the 
beautiful.  An  abrupt  introduction  to  vast  galleries  of  painting 
and  sculpture  oppresses  and  confuses  the  mind.  My  own  first 
experience  was  the  Louvre.  In  the  effort  to  maintain  my  men- 
tal equilibrium,  I  censured  and  eulogized  in  hot  haste,  hurrying 
from  one  object  to  another  with  delirious  rapidity  as  if  the 
whole  were  a  bubble  about  to  burst,  until,  with  an  aching  brain 
and  unmoved  heart,  I  gladly  escaped  to  the  outer  air  for  breath. 

Still,  mistakes  are  our  best  teachers.   Indeed,  error 

Best  teachers.  -.^         ,      „  ,  , 

IS  the  guide- board  or  truth  ;  for  as  we  detect  the  false, 
we  draw  nigher  to  the  eternal  Right.  What  I  have  to  say  to- 
day, though  not  the  wisest  thought,  is  more  matured  than  the 
one  of  yesterday.  I  say  it,  whether  it  coincides  or  not  with  a 
previous  one,  because  it  is  the  fruit  of  more  study,  and  therefore 
likely  to  be  wiser.  The  first  steps  of  any  progress  are  wearisome 
and  disappointing.  But  in  those  of  art  Beauty  is  ever  in  view 
to  tempt  us  on. 

In  science  ideas  are  first  in  sequence,  and  truth  the  object. 
Art  reverses  this.  Ideas  are  not  necessarily  included,  for  much 
art  has  no  other  intent  than  sensuous  enjoyment.  In  verity, 
this  is  its  vital  purpose  ;  the  one  which  inspires  it  to  seek  beauty 
as  means  and  aim.  All  else  we  get  from  it  is  a  collateral  issue. 
Whenever  it  is  limited  to  other  ends,  as  to  religion  or  mere  nar- 
ration, it  loses  somewhat  of  its  true  character.  There  is  for  it 
a  higher  office  than  teaching,  noble  as  that  is.  It  was  sent  to 
earth  to  adorn,  charm,  comfort,  and  rejoice  human  life,  and  with 
it  came  that  intense  love  of  beauty  which  both  man  and  nature 
manifest,  ever  restless  when  deprived  of  its  presence.  If  the 
world  would  be  an  intellectual  blank  from  the  loss  of  art  as  an 
illustrator  and  recorder,  what  a  hideous  prison  would  it  be  were 
beauty  to  be  completely  withdrawn  from  nature,  and  man  have 
neither  deli<iht  in  God's  work  nor  satisfaction  in  his  own,  because 
he  could  add  no  grace  or  dignity  to  what  he  creates  for  himself, 
or  gladden  it  with  color !  Setting  aside  gallery  painting  and 
sculpture,  which  few  peoples  possess,  we  have  only  to  conceive 
of  common  things  stripped  of  whatever  gives  them  lightness, 
delicacy,  symmetry,  brilliancy,  of  all  that  which,  besides  use. 


CONSCIENCE  IN  ART. 


11 


renders  them  pleasing  to  the  eye  and  suggestive  to  thought ;  and 
we  can  realize  how  much  art  does  in  the  humblest  ways  to  pro- 
mote our  happiness,  and  from  this  conceive  of  its  capacity  to 
brighten  our  existence,  if  we  would  allow  it  full  expression  in  all 
the  walks  of  life.  The  ugly  utensil,  a  blank  or  vulgar  in  color, 
betokens  a  mind  either  rude  or  coarse,  or  with  its  brightest  facul- 
ties obscured.  No  one  who  studies  the  natural  world  can  fail  to 
be  persuaded  of  the  intent  of  the  Creator  to  make  mankind 
happy  through  their  instinctive  capacities  of  enjoying  what  He 
has  created.  It  is  a  religious  duty  to  be  happy.  A  large  share 
of  that  duty  should  be  exercised  in  carrying  forward  what  God 
has  begun,  and  making  the  earth  more  enjoyable  in  little  things 
as  well  as  large.  He  lavishly  decorates  the  tiniest  plant,  and 
makes  glad  the  minutest  insect  with  a  glory  all  its  own.  Man 
imitates  this  example  as  he  feels  his  way  towards  civilization. 
He  may  be  a  cannibal,  brutal  and  sanguinary,  every-  ^ 

.,1    ,      ^        T  n  .      n        .1  •  Decoration. 

way  ;  still  the  nrst  dawn  of  intellect  is  shown  in  a  crav- 
ing for  Decoration.  This  is  the  primary  spiritual  want,  though 
complete  refinement  is  the  last  stage  of  progress.  Tattooing, 
staining,  carving,  and  ornaments,  precede  clothing.  However 
rude  the  lower  classes  of  civilized  nations,  they  betray  amid 
their  dirt  and  rags  the  same  greed  of  beauty,  quenched  only  in 
the  lowest  degradations.  Therefore,  the  instinct  given  for  a 
beneficent  purpose,  the  finality  of  which  I  believe  to  be  man's 
supreme  felicity,  or  the  consciousness  of  being  good,  proven  by 
the  perfect  enjoyment  of  those  qualities  of  forms  and  colors 
which  in  the  soul's  sight  incarnate  goodness,  —  this  instinct  can- 
not be  too  sedulously  cultivated.  But  we  are  wise  in  our  choice 
of  beauty  only  after  understanding  its  highest  purpose.  There 
is  a  conscience  in  art  to  be  cultivated  as  in  morals,  „ 

.  '  Conscience 

by  directing  it  to  the  pure,  noble,  and  true.  Different  in  An. 
degrees  and  kinds  of  beauty  call  for  corresponding  siS7on^^' 
differences  of  satisfaction.  One  object  may  be  enjoyed  ^«^p^^^^°^- 
for  its  special  attractions,  regardless  of  use  or  purpose  ;  another 
for  its  perfect  adaptation  to  its  end,  which  may  be  common  or 
even  coarse,  but  ennobled  by  richness  of  decoration,  as  in  some 
drinking-cups  or  tools  ;  and  others  for  their  delicacy  of  hue  and 
shape.  Art  always  has  its  own  sensuous  language,  irrespective 
of  any  higher  meaning.  All  this  is  enjoyable  in  kind,  but  it  is 
an  error  to  stop  at  mere  sensation.  While  allowing  pleasurable 
emotions,  that  begin  and  end  with  our  physical  being,  their  free 
scope,  we  should  look  deeper  into  its  mysteries  until  we  come 


12 


ADORATION  THE  END  OF  ART. 


into  the  presence  of  the  Holy  One  whence  it  comes,  and  be  con- 
tent only  as  it  is  illumined  by  the  Divine  Spirit. 

I  am  emphatic  in  asserting  the  right  and  duty  of  man's  enjoy- 
ment of  art  equally  with  nature,  because  of  the  fear  which  ascetic 
creeds  put  into  timid  consciences  —  a  fear  which  deprives  them 
of  a  precious  gift  of  the  Father,  and  deprives  Him  of  the  love 
which  every  true  heart  feels  for  the  Author  of  its  happiness.  It 
is  nothing  to  the  point  that  the  Christian  ideal  has  not  yet  been 
attained.  Art  has  suggested  its  final  capacity  by  special  suc- 
cesses on  the  sensuous,  intellectual  plane  of  the  Grecian  phase. 
As  we  advance  the  powers  already  manifested  under  various  in- 
spirations and  among  diverse  races  will  be  shown,  so  that  some 
judgment  may  be  formed  of  the  limits  of  its  attributes  and  func- 
tions, and  their  final  standard  of  execution. 

The  appreciation  of  art  spiritually,  as  with  nature,  ends  in 
adoration,  not  in  the  garb  of  a  ritual,  but  in  a  repose  of  mind 
that  passeth  description.  Now  enjoyment  and  worship  become 
one.  No  one  will  accuse  me  of  exalting  enjoyment  at  the 
expense  of  morality,  if  he  will  reflect  that  between  men  the 
highest  compliment  that  can  pass  is  the  enjoying  of  whatever 
love  or  friendship  confers.  Our  keenest  social  happiness  is 
based  on  this.  Enlarge  and  exalt  this  feeling,  as  needs  be  done 
when  we  approach  divinity,  and  the  result  is  that  perfect  use 
and  enjoyment  of  life  which  constitutes  an  homage  alike  worthy 
of  man  and  his  Maker. 

Science,  apart  from  its  material  mission  by  which  it  consents 
to  be  the  servant  of  men,  has  a  still  nobler  purpose,  and  talks 
face  to  face  with  spirit,  disclosing  its  knowledge  direct  to  mind 
itself.  Unfolding  the  laws  of  being,  it  carries  thought  into  the 
infinite,  creating  an  inward  art  so  perfect  that  objects  fashioned 
by  the  hand  become  eloquent  only  as  they  express  the  abstract 
truths  of  science.  The  mind  rejects  as  base  or  false  all  that 
the  imagination  would  impose  on  it  not  consistent  with  the 
principles  and  facts  manifested  in  the  creation.  As  nature  is 
God's  art,  so  science  is  the  disclosure  of  His  soul,  or  that  philos- 
ophy which,  comprehending  all  knowledge,  includes  art  as  one 
of  its  phases.  Art,  to  be  effectual  as  a  teacher,  must  be  consist- 
ent with  its  own  instructor.  Otherwise  it  falls  into  isolated  and 
inferior  truths,  and,  being  detached  from  great  principles,  per- 
verts knowledge  and  corrupts  feeling. 

While,  therefore,  art  is  valuable  as  an  elementary  teacher  by 
reason  of  its  alliance  with  science,  it  exposes  man  to  seductions 


CHIEF  DANGER  OF  ART. 


13 


througli  the  medium  of  his  corporeal  senses,  on  account  of  its 
greater  affinity  to  feeling.  In  the  degree  that  the  soul  is 
clouded  by  carnal  desires,  sensation  and  reason  are  developed  in 
the  direction  of  external  life,  seizing  upon  that  as  the  chief  ob- 
ject of  pleasure  and  investigation.  Ignoring  the  special  pur- 
pose of  gross  matter  and  separating  it  from  spirit,  or  viewing 
the  phenomena  of  spirit  only  as  those  of  matter,  and  calling  it 
the  only  eternal  thing,  it  becomes  the  ultimate  good  of  existence. 
This  is  the  chief  danger  of  art,  a  snare  to  the  undiscriminating ; 
but  its  force  and  direction  depend  on  the  will.  The  chief  ob- 
stacle to  science  is  its  inexorable  demand  upon  pure  reason,  in- 
volving a  systematic  labor  of  thought  which  few  are  disposed  to 
undertake.  If  art  or  science  recognize  the  spirit's  integuments 
as  the  only  reality  in  life,  disappointment  and  debasement  are 
sure  to  ensue.  On  the  other  hand,  in  viewing  forms  as  the 
outgrowth  of  spirit  and  subjecting  the  outer  fact  to  the  inner 
principle,  we  approach  more  nearly  to  the  sources  of  truth  and 
beauty. 

In  one  sense  all  truth  comes  of  suggestion ;  so  too,  all  false- 
hood. One  is  called  inspiration,  the  other  temptation.  Whence 
and  how  ideas  come  and  go  no  man  may  now  tell.  Yet  these 
laws  which  seem  so  obscure  will  in  the  light  of  future  life  be- 
come as  clear  as  is  gravitation  in  the  present.  We  may  expect  to 
discover  the  principles  and  laws  of  our  being,  but  not  the  source 
of  being  itself,  which  all  mankind  spontaneously  resolve  into 
the  indefinable  proposition,  God.>  In  this  all  must  rest.  But 
while  the  essence  of  life  is  so  mysterious  that  Jesus  compared  it 
to  the  coming  and  going  of  the  wind,  yet  it  is  palpable  to  all 
that  the  quality  and  direction  of  the  thought  depends  on  our 
will.  God  does  not  force  Himself  on  reluctant  minds,  or  charge 
their  faculties  with  ideas  disproportioned  to  their  forces ;  but  as 
they  labor  for  good  or  evil,  thoughts  and  feelings  correspond, 
as  one  flower  attracts  poison  from  the  atmosphere  and  another 
fragrance.  Our  minds  are  thus  inspired,  receiving  from  the  un- 
seen a  spiritual  nutriment,  which  strengthens  them  in  the  way 
their  desires  lead.  With  some,  thought  comes  orderly  and  with 
measured  progress.  These  are  our  sages  and  men  of  science. 
In  others" it  springs  up  in  wild  exuberance  from  wayside  seeds  : 
great  truths  amid  rank  errors ;  noble  aspiration  chained  to 
vehement  passion  ;  beauty  in  bondage  to  matter.  So  inspired, 
speaks  the  artist,  the  poet,  and  the  seer. 

While  art  should  be  earnest  and  impassioned,  manifesting 


14 


ACCORD  OF  FEELING  AND  REASON. 


clearly  its  motives,  no  less  should  it  be  scientifically  correct  in 
execution,  and  as  a  whole,  clearly  and  harmoniously  express  its 
meaning  and  functions.  In  this  way  feeling  and  reason  are 
made  to  accord,  unity  is  obtained,  and  truth  in  the  garb  of  beauty 
becomes  doubly  welcome. 


CHAPTER  11. 


THE  PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART. 

LTHOUGH  religious  and  sesthetic  ideas  S'S"'tic 
are  distinct,  art  has  been  so  closely  asso-  ideas. 
ciated  with  religions  in  early  history,  that  they  must 
be  spoken  of  almost  as  one.  In  incipient  civiliza- 
tions the  religious  sentiment  controlled  the  imag- 
ination, and  made  of  art  a  mere  instrument  to  give  shape  to 
its  beliefs.  Hence  we  invariably  find  it  in  this  stage  of  human 
progress  more  intent  on  expressing  the  symbolism  of  the  popular 
faiths  than  asserting  its  own  aesthetic  laws. 

A  desire  to  personify  the  unseen  intelligence  which  governs 
the  world,  joined  to  the  instinct  of  ideal  beauty,  gave  birth  to 
sculpture.  Painting,  at  first,  was  only  an  accessor}^,  and  more  as 
a  type  than  as  ornament.  In  Egypt  and  India  the  art-idea 
was  wholly  dominated  by  the  theological,  which  gave  to  its  enig- 
matical idols  rigid  and  fixed  forms  as  unchangeable  as  the  beings 
they  symbolized.  The  intent  was  to  impress  the  beholder  with 
awe  and  reverence  of  divine  and  earthly  rulers,  and  to  add  to 
their  mystery  and  splendor.  King,  priest,  and  god  then  were 
almost  synonymous  terms,  the  god  often  being  a  deified  hero. 
Judging  from  the  massive  largeness  and  unimpassioned  features 
of  Egyptian  deities,  art  intended  them  for  kindly,  protective, 
self-satisfied  beings,  unmoved  by  the  vagaries  so  common  among 
their  Grecian  fellows.  In  serene  repose  they  look  down  with 
a  benignant  smile  on  the  world  at  their  feet. 

Assyrian  art  was  allied  to  the  Egyptian  in  mystic  g^^^^^^^^ 
grandeur  of  symbolism,  but  was  more  particularly  devoted 
to  the  deification  of  the  living  ruler.  The  art  of  both  peoples  as 
well  as  that  of  contemporary  India,  not  being  based  on  aesthetic 
principles,  is  interesting  only  in  an  historical  or  hierarchal  view. 
India  still  clings  to  her  fantastic,  extravagant  symbolism  ;  to  the 
initiated  a  personification  of  its  religious  philosophy,  but  to  the 
masses  an  idolatry,  but  one  remove  from  fetichism.  And  in 
China  and  Japan  religious  art  offers  no  better  aspect.    It  is  an 


16 


ONE-SIDEDNESS  IN  ART. 


exhibition  of  the  diabohsm  of  theology,  in  shapes  such  as  im- 
aginations steeped  in  superstitious  fears  conceive.  Doubtless 
much  of  this  horrid  imagery  is  due  to  an  incapacity  of  appre- 
hending the  beautiful  in  the  highest  forms  of  art;  while  this 
incapacity  is  largely  the  result  of  a  base  theology,  and  not  of 
any  organic  mental  defect ;  for  both  races  show  acute  percep- 
tions and  keen  instincts  in  ornamentation.  But  the  effect  of 
their  religious  art  has  been  to  enslave  the  minds  of  those  that 
enslaved  it,  and  to  put  a  bar  to  their  civilization.  Without  this 
false  art  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  East  should  have  remained 
so  long  in  intellectual  and  religious  stagnation.  Moses,  and 
subsequently  Mohammed,  took  note  of  the  misuse  of  art  and  pro- 
hibited its  practice.  But  their  disregard  of  its  right  functions 
left  their  followers  in  a  condition  scarcely  better  than  that  which 
was  the  result  of  the  opposite  extreme.  One-sidedness  in 
any  direction  hinders  the  development  of  civilization,  but  the 
perversion  of  art  into  idolatry  most  of  all.  It  then  assumes 
abortive,  grotesque,  and  monstrous  shapes,  or  lapses  into  sensual- 
ity and  superstition,  converting  worship  into  a  pageant  which 
takes  the  likeness  of  the  ignorance  and  wickedness  that  dwarfs 
and  poisons  the  art  that  is  given  to  the  people  at  large.  Still 
as  each  man  contains  the  germ  of  a  perfect  development,  so 
every  race  has  its  exceptional  wise  men  who  save  their  country- 
men from  being  left  in  utter  darkness.  There  is  no  national  art, 
however  degraded,  which  does  not  show  some  evidence  of  an 
aspiration  for  eternal  truth  and  beauty. 

Reluctant  to  embody  their  notions  of  divine  things,  the  He- 
brew legislators  so  quenched  the  artistic  feeling  of  the  Jews, 
that  Solomon,  too  wise  to  be  a  bigot,  was  obliged  to  apply  to 
the  Tyrians  for  common  artificers  to  decorate  his  temple,  as  later 
Herod  did  to  Greek  workmen,  when  he  undertook  its  restoration. 
But  even  the  restricted  latitude  of  decoration  which  these  kings 
gave  to  sacred  architecture,  was  repudiated  by  Protestant  sects 
in  their  interpretation  of  the  code  of  Moses.  The  proscription 
of  idolatrous  images  was  construed  as  extending  to  all  art, 
which  was  regarded  as  a  device  of  Satan  to  ensnare  souls. 
Thus  a  large  fraction  of  modern  civilization  came  to  be  stripped 
of  half  of  its  legitimate  happiness,  because  idolatrous  Orientals 
had  divorced  art  from  intellectual  freedom  and  made  it  subser- 
vient either  to  sensuality  or  despotism.  No  doubt  it  was  an 
evil  in  such  hands,  but  the  fault  was  not  in  itself,  any  more 
than  printing  is  to  blame  because  unscrupulous  writers  pervert 
its  capacity  of  good  into  the  bad. 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  17 


We  must  look  to  Greece  for  the  first  development  of  art  on 
a  purely  assthetic  foundation.  Here  I  would  observe  that  the 
word  aesthetic  implies  the  observation  and  detection  of  the  ugly 
or  homely,  as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  the  beautiful,  ^^^^.^^^y. 
Indeed,  there  can  be  no  proper  understanding  of  the  eestketic. 
one  without  the  other,  as  everything  within  the  range  '^^'"^"^"^ 
of  human  capacity  must  be  in  its  nature  relative,  not  supreme 
truth.  Therefore  this  term,  which  originated  in  Greece,  means 
in  the  sense  I  shall  use  it,  whatever  helps  us  to  perceive,  under- 
stand, and  enjoy  the  beautiful,  and  includes  both  the  science  and 
philosophy  of  the  accompanying  sensations.  No  other  word 
so  comprehensively  and  yet  so  particularly  applies  to  my  topic ; 
but  it  is  one  which  is  often  accepted  either  in  too  restricted  or 
too  vague  a  sense. 

Greece  also  had  its  symbolical  creations  which  resembled 
nothing  on  earth,  whatever  the  religious  imagination  might  con- 
ceive as  existing  beyond,  or  as  requisite  to  embody  the  sacred 
mysteries.  Some  of  its  figures  were  as  strange  and  graceless 
as  those  of  India.  Indeed,  both  Asia  and  Egypt,  on  account  of 
their  superior  civilizations,  exercised  a  direct  influence  over  the 
primitive  art  of  Greece,  as  well  as  that  of  Italy.  Viewed  as 
art  Diana  of  Ephesus  is  a  grotesque  monster.  Chimeras,  three- 
eyed,  double-headed,  and  hundred-armed  statues  are  analogous 
to  oriental  image-mysticism.  But  in  its  fauni,  satyrs,  nereids, 
and  kindred  creations,  we  perceive  the  growing  ascendency  of 
the  natural  and  beautiful,  holding  the  symbolical  in  restraint, 
until  art  finally  emancipates  itself  from  servitude  to  the  theolog- 
ical idea,  and  occupies  an  independent  position.  In  some  sense 
art  and  religion  remained  one,  for  the  highest  efforts  of  the  former 
were  bestowed  on  the  mythology  of  the  country.  The  artistic 
mind,  freed  from  being  the  mouthpiece  of  a  rigid  creed,  infused 
new  light  and  life  into  religion  itself.  Creating  a  new  and  more 
refined  art,  based  on  the  facts  of  nature,  and  made  beautiful  by 
poetical  thought,  the  sculptured  gods,  while  emblematic  of  spir- 
itual aspirations  to  the  philosophic  mind,  were  brought  nearer 
to  the  sympathies  and  comprehension  of  the  masses.  The 
word  was  made  flesh  in  an  Eesthetic  sense,  as  later  under  the 
Christian  revelation  it  assumed  the  ascetic  shape.  Grecian  art 
was  the  offspring  of  the  newly  emancipated  intellect  and  im- 
agination inspired  by  the  homage  paid  to  beauty.  Both  it  and 
the  mythology  were  based  on  an  ideal  standard  of  humanity, 
aiming  at  the  godlike  in  functions  and  expression,  by  the  elim- 

2 


18 


MUSE  OF  CORTONA. 


ination  of  material  weakness  or  signs  of  imperfection  and  decay, 
and  in  the  personification  of  the  phenomena  of  nature  as  in- 
terpreted by  the  poetical  faculty ;  not  to  produce  grotesque  and 
uncouth  symbols  like  the  Asiatic,  but  taking  their  clue  from  the 
beautiful  in  the  visible  creature,  and  exalting  it  by  the  joint 
force  of  science  and  imasjination  into  the  hio^hest  conceivable 
types  of  beauty  and  fullness  of  meaning  in  harmony  with  their 
faith. 

The  foundation  of  the  earliest  religions  was  either  in  ex- 
ternal nature  the  effect  suggesting  a  cause,  or  in  the  disposi- 
tion of  man  to  repeat  his  own  nature  with  superhuman  attri- 
butes. This  tended  to  a  prolific  mythology,  which  in  turn  gen- 
erated a  fruitful  art.  So  fixed  in  mental  childhood  is  the  de- 
sire to  personify  objects  of  belief,  that  even  the  Jews  repeatedly 
relapsed  into  idol-worship.  In  the  main,  however,  they  were 
the  Puritans  of  antiquity  ;  as  the  Egyptians  may  be  said  to 
have  shown  in  their  priestly  assumption,  flexibility  of  action, 
and  unchangeableness  of  dogma,  the  likeness  of  Romanism ; 
while  the  Greeks  more  resembled  those  nations  of  our  time 
that  have  substituted  civil  liberty  for  church-government.  In- 
spired by  philosophy,  they  opened  their  minds  to  the  widest 
ranges  of  thought  and  imagination,  and  borrowing  from  the 
learning  and  experience  of  all  nations,  their  wisdom  culminated 
in  Aristotle,  Socrates,  and  Plato,  and  their  art  in  Homer,  ^s- 
chylus,  Phidias,  and  Apelles. 

^.  ^  Although  beauty  was  the  aim  of  Greek  art,  it  was 
din  art.  not  left  to  the  dubious  guidance  of  feeling,  but  sub- 
S'"^^""  jected  so  skillfully  to  science,  that  their  best  work 
Encaustic      makes   us  forget  art  in    its    seemins:  naturalness. 

painting.  ...  r  . 

Whether  their  painting  was  on  a  par  with  their  sculp- 
ture is  a  mooted  question.  Doubtless  it  was  subjected  to  sim- 
ilar rules.  If  an  isolated  specimen  can  afford  sufficient  proof  of 
their  equality,  the  so-called  "Muse  of  Cortona  "  offers  that  evi- 
dence. 

The  "  Muse  "  is  one  of  those  rare  surprises  which  make  the 
mind  realize  the  meaning  of  the  poet's  "joy  forever."  As  the 
traveller  is  whirled  over  the  iron  road  that  now  bisects  the  Val 
di  Chiana  in  Central  Italy,  his  eyes  fastened  on  Lake  Thrasy- 
mene,  thinking  perhaps  of  Hannibal's  victory,  he  gives  small 
heed  to  the  grim  hill-town  on  his  left,  looking  more  like  a  den 
of  thieves  than  the  home  of  the  fairest  relic  of  Grecian  painting 
that  time  has  kept  for  us. 


PA  GAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  li 


If  he  fail  to  alight  and  mount  that  long  hill  he  will  miss  a 
sight  such  as  Europe  cannot  elsewhere  offer.  It  is  a  sensation 
in  itself  approaching  awe  to  be  within  walls  which  were  ancient 
before  Troy  was  taken,  and  whose  massive  stones,  capped  by  the 
lighter  structures  of  mediaeval  times,  still  girdle  the  town,  re- 
taining the  same  gateways  through  which  for  more  than  three 
thousand  years  the  human  tide  of  Cortona  has  ebbed  and 
flowed :  glum  arches,  commanding  vistas  of  plain,  mountain, 
lake,  far-off  towered  towns,  castles,  pagan  and  Christian  fanes 
and  battle-fields,  for  which  Pelasgian,  Etruscan,  Carthaginian, 
Roman,  Guelph,  and  Ghibelline,  Pope  and  Italian,  by  turns  have 
fought,  through  the  vicissitudes  of  a  history  whose  light  fades 
away  in  myths  coeva!  with  man's  first  appearance  on  earth. 

Cortona  is  so  shrunken  internally  that  one  quarter  of  the 
space  within  the  walls  is  filled  with  ruins  or  restored  to  agricul- 
ture;  another  quarter  is  taken  up  by  narrow,  foot- wrenching 
streets,  the  grime  of  whose  deep-browed  houses  makes  a  back- 
ground of  mysterious  obscurity,  like  their  own  history,  and 
which  requires  all  the  intensity  of  Italian  sunlight  to  enliven 
for  a  fleeting  moment.  The  remainder  of  the  town  fits  well 
enough  into  modern  life  without  detriment  to  its  ancient  gene- 
alogy. 

The  only  existing  example  of  Grecian  easel-painting,  is  kept 
in  a  little  cabinet  in  the  Museum.  When  opened,  the  sight 
transports  a  visitor  back  to  its  best  period.  He  sees  the  head 
and  bust  of  a  youno;  girl,  one  third  life-size,  holding  a  lyre, 
painted  in  a  wax  medium  on  a  fragment  of  slate.  It  was  found 
in  the  last  century  by  a  peasant,  in  the  earth  of  his  farm.  Sup- 
posing it  to  be  a  votive  Madonna,  he  gave  it  an  honorable  posi- 
tion in  his  cottage  ;  but  when  told  by  a  priest  that  it  was  an  idol, 
he  used  the  slate  to  stop  a  hole  in  his  oven.  In  this  position  it 
was  discovered  and  taken  possession  of  by  his  landlord,  and  after 
various  adventures,  was  given  to  the  Museum  by  the  same  per- 
son who  presented  its  other  unique  treasure,  the  famous  Etrus- 
can lamp  of  bronze. 

There  are  sundry  abrasions,  and  some  loss  of  shadow  and 
gradation  of  tints,  but  these  injuries  are  slight.  Indeed,  com- 
pared with  most  paintings  of  the  best  Italian  period,  it  is  so 
sound  as  to  offer  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  vehicles  used  and 
the  substance  on  which  it  is  painted.  At  first  glance  its  statu- 
esque projection  is  very  remarkable.  Evidently  it  was  painted 
by  one  trained  to  the  practice  of  Zeuxis,  of  modelling  his  figures 


20 


MUSE  OF  CORTONA. 


in  terra- cotta  before  painting  them.  No  modern  painting  that 
I  have  seen  on  similar  material  gives  other  effect  than  a  fiat  and 
reflecting  surface.  This  is  surrounded  by  atmosphere.  The  eye 
reposes  on  a  transparent,  harmonious,  grayish  purple  ether,  in 
the  midst  of  which  stands  a  low-browed  girl,  just  bloomed  into 
womanhood,  not  idealized  into  monotonous  regularity  of  outline, 
but  with  the  freshness,  variety,  and  flexibility  of  modelling  united 
into  an  expressive  whole,  such  as  is  seen  only  in  the  finest  liv- 
ing examples. 

Macses  of  golden  brown  hair  fall  over  the  shoulders  and  stray 
in  delicate  lines  to  the  front,  intermingling  on  the  brow  with  a 
laurel  wreath.  The  right  bosom,  of  virgin  form  and  tint,  is 
exposed.  A  transparent  drapery  heightens  the  effect  of  the  soft 
carnation  of  the  left  shoulder  and  the  delicate  flesh  of  the  other 
bosom,  whose  sweet  beauty  it  modestly  veils.  Drooping  eyes 
give  a  vestal  look  to  features  the  intelligence  of  which  corre- 
sponds to  their  comeliness.  It  seems  spiritually  super-sensuous  ; 
-what  the  Venus  di  Milo  must  have  been  in  early  girlhood,  with 
the  possibilities  of  the  goddess-mother  nascent  in  her  ;  in  fine,  a 
handsome,  healthful  child  of  earth,  whose  pure  instincts  are  as 
yet  untested  by  worldly  life,  leaving  the  beholder  in  rapt  admira- 
tion of  the  lovely  being  before  him,  while  undetermined  as  to  her 
destiny.  She  might  become  a  Sappho,  an  Aspa?<ia,  or  a  Cornelia ; 
no  matter  which !  There  she  stands  more  like  life  than  any 
female  figure  I  can  recall  of  the  "  old  masters "  or  of  recent 
painters.  In  some  technical  details  the  best  of  them  may  have 
done  some  things  superior  to  points  of  execution  in  this  picture. 
But  the  "  Muse  "  combines  that  perfect  adaptation  of  color  with 
form  which  best  expresses  the  complete  science  and  inspiration 
of  art.  And  this  excellence  is  as  much  owing  to  color  as  to 
design.  There  appears  to  be  a  slight  elongation  of  the  neck, 
perhaps  done  io  .give  a  better  effect  in  the  position  that  the 
painter  intended  his  work  should  be  seen.  Esthetic  law  admits 
local  falsehood  in  order  to  attain  greater  general  truth,  in  the 
sense  that  all  art  is  not  the  truth  but  its  effigy.  A  photo- 
graph which  is  popularly  supposed  to  render  the  exact  fact,  does 
so  at  only  one  point.  All  the  rest  is  diminished  or  exaggerated 
as  it  recedes  from  it.  An  artist,  therefore,  is  often  obliged  to 
adroitly  avoid  exactness  in  detail  in  order  to  secure  unity  in 
the  mass  at  the  prescribed  point  of  view. 

The  coloring  of  the  "  Muse "  is  solid,  broad,  and  emphatic, 
with  fine  gradation  of  tone,  and  a  force  of  chiaro-oscuro  that  re- 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  21 


calls  Leonardo.  Indeed  the  picture  is  a  happy  exemplification 
of  his  axioms.  It  affects  the  senses  like  enchanting  music.  A 
large  sum  has  been  offered  for  it  by  the  agent  of  a  foreign 
museum,  but  as  it  was  given  on  condition  of  being  perpetually 
kept  at  Coi'tona,  this  isolated  city  is  likely  to  always  possess  the 
sole  extant  proof  of  the  equality  of  Greek  painting  to  its  sculp- 
ture. It  is  a  mere  fragment,  and  may  not  be  an  example  of  the 
best  antique  execution.  Had  we  those  master-pieces  of  which 
such  fabulous  statements  have  come  down  to  us,  we  might  have 
a  clearer  standard  by  which  to  adjudicate  the  relative  merits  of 
classical  and  christian  painting.  The  "  Muse  "  has  those  quali- 
ties which  the  best  Italian  masters  have  ever  sought,  and  which 
French  art  tries  to  realize.  Painted  in  the  encaustic  method, 
which  was  adopted  in  remote  antiquity,  it  resists  time  and  hu- 
midity better  than  any  other.  The  Byzantines  adopted  it  from 
the  old  and  transmitted  it,  in  a  modified  manner,  to  the  modern 
Greeks  and  to  the  Russians.  There  exist  pictures,  done  in  this 
way  eight  centuries  ago,  perfect  now.  Pliny  says  this  system 
was  in  vogue  before  the  epoch  of  Aristides.  It  is  conjectured 
that  the  colors  were  boiled  with  wax,  into  which  a  light  dose 
of  oil  was  infused.  The  prices  paid  Zeuxis,  Parrhasius,  and 
Apelles  exceeded  even  modern  prodigality,  and  indicate  the 
esteem  in  which  they  were  held.  Lucullus  gave  several  thou- 
sand dollars  for  a  copy  of  a  portrait  of  Glycere  seated  with  a 
crown  of  flowers  in  her  hand.  Nicias  refused  upward  of  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  of  our  money,  for  a  painting  of  the 
"  Descent  of  Ulysses  into  Hell,"  preferring  to  give  it  to  Athens 
his  birth-place.  Julius  Caesar  paid  nearly  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  two  pictures  of  Ajax  and  Medea.  The  fees  given  by 
pupils  to  the  great  masters  were  enormous,  but  the  course  of 
study  in  their  studios  was  thorough.  Protogenes  worked  seven 
years  on  his  picture  of  the  hunter  Jalysus.  We  cite  Leonardo's 
four  years'  work  on  the  "  Jaconda  "  as  a  wonder  of  patient  elab- 
oration. Four  centuries  have  robbed  it  of  its  finest  qualities, 
while  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  twenty,  the  "  Muse"  retains 
hers  —  a  striking  contrast  to  the  rapid  destructibility  or  deteri- 
oration of  modern  pigments. 

The  type  and  treatment  of  the  "Muse"  are  Grecian,  but  there 
is  also  about  it  a  certain  expression  that  indicates  study  from 
nature,  after  the  manner  of  the  Etruscans,  and  renders  it  a  happy 
example  of  the  merits  of  both  schools.  Once  I  should  have 
maintained  that  it  was  an  ideal  head  of  the  classical  model.  But 


22 


RAPHAEL'S  THEORY  OF  IDEALS. 


a  recent  experience  had  proved  to  me  that  the  highest  idealism 
of  art  is  at  times  excelled  by  nature  herself,  and  that  however 
much  the  artist  may  labor  to  perfect  beauty  as  a  whole,  he  will, 
perhaps,  where  he  least  expects  to,  find  a  complete  model  fitted 
to  his  loftiest  aspirations. 

A  few  days  before  seeing  the  "  Muse  "  I  had  met  in  Perugia  so 
beautiful  a  peasant  girl  that  her  memory  has  haunted  me  ever 
since.  Her  brow  was  low,  hair  luxuriant,  eyebrows  dark,  long, 
and  finely  pencilled,  eyes  large,  deep-set,  and  lustrous,  of  the 
richest  brown,  the  nose  chiselled  as  for  a  Diana,  and  the  mouth 
and  chin  indicating  a  fine  temperament  and  those  qualities  most 
desirable  in  woman.  The  complexion  showed  a  warm  carnation 
in  a  transparent,  delicate  olive,  as  would  appear  the  blood  of  the 
south  seen  though  the  fairest  skin  of  the  north.  Her  figure  was 
almost  heroic  in  size  and  shape,  and  her  untutored  manners 
and  speech  such  as  the  best-bred  lady  might  covet. 

Here  then  was  the  original  of  the  "  Muse.  "  Some  sister  of 
hers  two  thousand  years  before  had  been  seen  and  painted 
for  our  benefit  by  an  appreciating  artist,  little  dreaming  of  an  ad- 
miring critic  from  a  then  unheard-of  world,  who  would  now 
gratefully  perpetuate  his  name  if  he  could. 

RaphaePs  Raphael  writes,  in  explanation  of  his  ideals,  "  I  find 
idTaTi^"^  the  best  form  I  can  in  nature  and  then  avail  myself 
of  certain  ideas  which  come  into  my  mind,"  adding,  beautiful 
women  are  scarce,  and  it  was  necessary  to  see  many  in  order  to 
select  parts  to  fit  into  a  perfect  whole.  This  theory  of  selection 
differs  from  the  Greek  principle,  which  was  rather  to  cieate 
anew  the  beautiful  as  an  organic  whole,  instead  of  forming  it 
out  of  disconnected  parts.  When  either  has  done  its  best,  and 
we  are  tempted  to  adore  the  art,  nature  steps  in  and  discloses  a 
divine  art,  which  puts  man's  to  the  blush.  The  adoring  eyes 
of  Raphael's  boy-angels  in  the  Madonna  del  Sisto,  look  as  if 
borrowed  from  a  celestial  sphere.  But  in  an  out  of  the  way 
valley  in  the  province  of  Lucca,  I  found  the  originals,  dirty  and 
timid,  of  those  fiiir-haired,  prophet-eyed  children.  They  are  the 
rarest  of  the  types  of  infantile  beauty,  but  the  difference  between 
the  artistic  and  the  common  eye,  is,  that  to  the  former  a  transient 
glance  at  the  beautiful  becomes  at  once  a  divine  revelation, 
while  to  the  other  nothing  is  disclosed  but  an  unheeded  fact. 

Not  long  before  in  the  neighboring  mountains,  I  had  met  a 
lithe  strong-limbed  peasant  girl  gracefully  poising  a  copper  vase 
full  of  water  on  her  head,  supported  by  one  hand,  the  other  up- 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  23 


raised  in  an  heroic  attitude,  encouraging  a  cow  to  ascend  tlie 
stone  steps  which  led  up  the  hill.  Her  pose  and  action  were 
an  inspiration  for  an  artist,  heightened  as  their  effect  was  by  the 
simple  elegance  of  the  folds  of  her  coarse  drapery,  her  fine, 
healthful  figure,  and  the  clear  ring  of  her  voice  as  she  sang  en- 
couraging words  to  her  charge.  Immediately  there  was  re- 
vealed, whence  and  how  the  ancients  got  their  motives  and  mod- 
els for  bronzes  and  pottery. 

Nature's  best  lessons  are  rare,  but  once  given  to  the  detective 
eyes  of  art,  they  last  decades  of  centuries  to  cheer  and  delight 
those  who  otherwise  might  be  blind  both  to  nature  and  art.  Keep 
in  mind  that  all  art  in  manifesting  the  sublime  and  beautiful,  is 
only  recording  the  progress  of  man  in  detecting  their  spirit  and 
forms  in  creation. 

That  the  beauty  and  freedom  of  Grecian  art  were  due  to  the 
native  genius,  is  proven  by  the  early  examples  of  sculpture. 
One  of  the  more  remarkable  is  a  bas-relief  of  Leucotea,  Bac- 
chus, and  Ninfe,  at  Rome.  We  note  the  dawning  emancipation 
of  Greek  from  Egyptian  art,  in  an  attempt  to  adapt  the  still 
rigid  attitudes,  bound  limbs,  and  imposing  formalism  of  the  lat- 
ter —  which  is  best  expressed  by  the  kindred  qualities  of  granite, 
porphyry,  and  similar  minerals,  and  owes  its  character  as  much 
to  their  color  as  to  form  —  to  the  more  perfect  uses  of  marble, 
its  greater  flexibility  and  capacity  of  expression.  Later  we 
perceive  the  reflex  influence  of  the  Greek  on  its  first  teacher,  in 
statues  like  the  Egyptian  Apollo,  which  combines  characteristics 
of  both  schools.  The  god  now  walks,  for  his  legs  are  unbound, 
but  retains  the  severe  simplicity  of  his  African  constitution,  ex- 
hibiting superhuman  strength  joined  to  classical  purity  of  form 
and  refinement  of  character. 

In  freeing  himself  from  the  prominent  characteristics  of  the 
Nilotic  school,  its  stereotyped  expression  and  preponderance  of 
matter  as  size,  weight,  and  strength,  immobility  and  endurance, 
the  Grecian  not  only  emancipated  art  from  sacerdotal  tyranny, 
but  showed  that  an  era  of  individual  liberty  had  dawned  on  the 
world.  Egyptian  artists  were  held  in  the  same  bondage  as  their 
profession,  being  looked  upon  as  image-cutters  or  painters  of  the 
lowest  castes,  whose  craft  by  law  passed  from  father  to  son. 
Yet  the  art  of  Egypt  atones  in  some  degree  for  its  lack  of  free- 
dom, by  that  mysterious  sublimity  which  came  from  a  broad  and 
majestic  treatment  of  its  imperishable  materials,  and  the  use  of 
colors  solely  in  a  conventional  or  symbolical  sense  ;  both  sculp- 


24 


EVERY  GREEK  A  LATENT  GOD. 


ture  and  painting  being  subservient  to  a  gigantic  architecture 
which  seems  to  be  the  image  of  Eternity  looking  down  on  Time. 

Doubtless  the  Egyptian  idol  was  shorn  of  much  of  divinity 
to  the  common  mind,  by  innovations  of  Grecian  origin,  but  to 
the  more  cultivated  race  Apollo  emerged  from  bondage  had 
become  truly  a  god.  The  spirit  of  Egyptian  art  was  formal 
and  unvaried  from  theological  pressure ;  of  the  Greek  free  and 
changeable  on  account  of  the  nature  of  its  mythology.  It  rejoiced 
in  sensuous  life,  and  put  no  more  restraint  on  the  artist  than  on 
the  god,  whose  latitude  of  action  was  the  standard  also  of  man  in 
his  pursuit  of  happiness,  though  inferior  in  degree.  The  art 
of  each  nation  is  a  picture  of  the  effect  of  its  faith  on  the  na- 
tional life.  In  this  light  it  becomes  instructive  to  compare  one 
with  another.  But  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  look  on  a  defunct 
art,  as  did  its  contemporaries ;  to  them  it  was  both  faith  and 
beauty.  The  former  we  can  appreciate  only  as  we  do  fossils, 
which  tell  the  age  and  condition  of  the  planet  in  its  different  geo- 
logical epochs.  Nature  does  not  repeat  herself  after  finishing  her 
work,  whether  mental  or  physical.  Any  art  not  based  on  our 
own  plane  of  instruction  or  feeling,  loses  its  primary  signifi- 
cance. But  the  laws  of  beauty  being  fundamental  and  uni- 
versal, if  understood,  we  can  judge  and  enjoy  art  in  their  light, 
even  when  not  clearly  comprehending  its  informing  motive. 

As  every  Greek  was  a  latent  god,  so  his  art  embodies  its 
ideal.  Ours  is  a  back  view,  and  none  but  scholars  can  interpret 
its  highest  thoughts.  But  so  far  as  it  goes,  in  its  relation  to 
our  common  humanity  and  nature  at  large,  it  is  complete  and 
consistent.  In  the  degree  that  we  arrive  at  an  understanding 
of  its  motives  they  appear  so  harmoniously  beautiful,  that  we 
readily  fall  into  sympathy  with  them.  We  may  not  believe  in 
a  nature  peopled  by  countless  divinities,  or  raise  our  imagina- 
tions to  that  poetical  height,  which  by  means  of  ingenious 
myths  and  fables,  brought  home  to  Grecian  minds  deep  moral 
and  physical  truths ;  still  we  can  appreciate  the  feeling  that  led 
them  to  see  a  god  in  each  of  the  phenomena  of  the  natural 
world,  and  to  devote  their  powers  to  making  the  Unseen  familiar 
to  men  in  general. 

For  a  time  only  did  the  Greek  artist  work  in  conformity  to 
pantheistic  ideas,  stimulated  by  a  religious  fervor,  directed  by, 
more  than  directing,  his  aesthetic  judgment.  Then  arose  a  phil- 
osophical reaction,  which,  reversing  the  popular  opinion,  saw  in 
symbols  and  dogmas  merely  the  living  of  transitory  ideas,  and  by 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  25 


the  path  of  infidelity  sought  a  way  to  higher  truths.  The  phil- 
osophy of  an  epoch,  however,  never  represents  the  common 
thought ;  it  simply  affirms  its  possibilities.  Therefore,  in  gener- 
alizing epochs,  the  common  mind  is  the  main  fact.  The  relig- 
ious, artistic  life  of  Greece  was  the  final  stage  of  progress 
possible  to  evolve  out  of  its  sensuous  faith,  while  the  develop- 
ment of  its  infidel  philosophy  contributed  largely  to  that  new 
phase  of  civilization,  which  was  born  of  the  semi-barbarous 
Jews,  and  planting  itself  firmly  on  monotheism,  finally  sup- 
planted polytheism  as  the  controlling  agent  of  human  progress. 

Judaea,  therefore,  succeeding  Greece  as  the  instructor  judxa  sup- 
of  religions,  substituted  one  God  for  a  legion  of  deities,  ^a'ieece. 
In  the  struggle  of  the  opposing  ideas,  Greek  art  shared  the  fate 
of  its  faith.  The  inherent  vice  of  polytheism  after  it  had  spent 
its  force,  shewed  itself  in  art,  in  the  exaltation  of  the  sensual 
over  the  intellectual ;  base  forms  of  ornament  taking  the  place 
of  higher  motives,  until  taste  was  finally  lost  in  ignorance  and 
low  desire.  Not  only  were  temple  and  statue  degraded  and  ul- 
timately destroyed,  but  mind  itself,  as  regarded  art,  relapsed  into 
a  barbarism  almost  as  rude  as  that  from  which  it  had  emerged, 
less  than  a  thousand  years  before.  Art  had  to  begin  a  new 
career  from  a  fresh  starting-point.  Just  as  at  first,  the  departed 
civilization  had  made  of  it  a  facile  instrument  to  symbolize  and 
spread  its  faith,  so  did  its  Christian  successor.  In  everything 
it  was  subordinated  to  the  new  religion.  Byzantine  thought  be- 
came completely  dogmatized.  Wars  and  politics  hinged  on 
creeds.  Even  when  art  was  used  simply  as  ornament,  it  dis- 
played a  mystical  and  sacred  character.  Unfortunately  the 
spirit  and  words  of  the  founder  of  Christianity  were  so  inter- 
preted as  to  provoke  subtle  controversy,  and  excite  fanatical 
passions  instead  of  to  regenerate  the  heart  and  to  enlighten  the 
mind.    Hence  a  blight  came  upon  art  in  the  outset  of  its  new  life. 

It  was  during  the  strifes  that  accompanied  the  transition 
period  of  the  rival  faith,  and  the  wars  that  were  occasioned  by 
the  gradual  dissolution  of  the  Roman  empire,  that  all  art  of  classi- 
cal origin  went  to  decay  ;  the  more  quickly  and  thoroughly  be- 
cause of  the  sensuality  into  which  it  had  sunk.  A  vast  amount 
of  prurient  examples,  characteristic  of  the  final  state  of  pagan 
civilization,  have  been  disinterred  in  Campania  and  elsewhere. 
These  are  now  kept  from  the  public,  though  they  were  once  dis- 
played without  shame  ;  and  no  doubt  were  as  fruitful  a  cause  as  an 
effect  of  heathen  immorality.   Indeed  the  current  ideas  and  habits 


26 


THE  PHALLUS  AND  SCAR  ABE  US. 


of  the  Latin  races  as  regards  modesty  and  chastity  may  be  traced 
back  to  the  free  exhibition  of  an  art  which  has  not  altogether 
lost  its  influence,  although  permitted  to  enter  no  households  or  ap- 
pear in  the  streets.  All  of  these  objects,  however,  did  not  origin- 
ate in  a  libidinous  art.  In  its  primitive  aspects  the  worship  of 
Venus  or  Bacchus  was  not  a  scandalous  display  of  debauchery. 
Among  the  ancients  generation  had  a  sacred  significance.  Acts 
and  objects  which  present  morality  condemns  in  public  were 
then  held  in  esteem  as  emblematical  of  divine  mysteries.  Some 
of  the  ancient  emblems  still  survive  in  form  though  not  in 
meaning.  To  us  the  obelisk  is  only  a  tall  and  comely  shaft  of 
stone.  In  antiquity  it  was  the  sacred  phallus,  the  sun's  prolific 
ray,  a  pole  and  spindle  of  the  sky,  eloquent  in  symbolism.  The 
cross  originally  was  significant  of  physical  sources  of  human 
life,  or  of  life  itself ;  now  it  has  risen  to  the  higher  use  of  the 
symbol  of  the  soul's  salvation.  Examples  of  this  nature  teach 
that  the  obsolete  or  condemned  fact  of  to-day  was  the  vital 
truth  of  yesterday.  A  phallus  was  seen  or  worn  by  refined 
women  of  antiquity  without  the  shame  which  would  now  attend 
its  exposure  in  the  lowest  of  the  sex.  Romanism  replaced  it  as 
a  symbol  by  that  crucifix  which  the  Puritan  regards  as  idolatrous, 
though  to  his  neighbor  it  speaks  only  of  holiness.  ^  The  beetle 
is  not  an  attractive  insect  in  looks  or  habits.  Yet  by  the  ladies 
of  Egypt  and  Etruria,  in  the  shape  of  the  scarabeus,  it  was 
viewed  as  the  image  of  the  original  creative  power,  because  it 
forms  a  ball  of  earth  with  its  hind  legs,  in  which  it  deposits  its 
eggs  ;  the  action  being  considered  emblematic  of  the  world  as  im- 
bued with  the  divine  instinct  or  influence.  They  considered  it 
as  sacred  as  modern  devotees  do  the  crucifix.  Like  this  talis- 
man, it  was  a  protective  charm,  having  engraved  on  it  the  efiigy 
of  their  Lar,  or  protecting  deity ;  sometimes  that  of  an  evil 
genius,  to  deprecate  its  power  ;  the  uglier  the  figure,  the  safer 
the  wearer.  In  time  the  cross  will  take  its  place  in  museums 
by  the  side  of  the  scarabeus. 

Doubtless  every  cherished  object  had  its  origin  in  some  legiti- 
mate sentiment  or  want.  But  sacred  images,  after  long  use,  lose 
their  spiritual  efficacy,  and  become  instrumental  in  degrading  the 
mind.  We  see  clearly  that  this  is  the  case  as  regards  the  old 
mythology.  The  image-worship  of  Romanism  is  passing  into  a 
like  phase.  In  its  turn  this  will  be  set  aside  for  a  more  rational 
ritual,  and  its  art,  like  the  defunct  pagan,  be  gathered  into 
museums  and  galleries.    What  now  concerns  my  topic  is  to  note 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  27 


the  immediate  effect  of  the  overturning  of  paganism  by  Christi- 
anity. 

Everything  of  the  past  being  viewed  with  suspicion,  art 
shared  the  disgrace.  Still,  as  it  was  necessary  to  reach  the 
minds  of  the  people  in  some  intelligible  and  attractive  way,  the 
new  priesthood  did  precisely  what  their  condemned  predecessors 
had  done  when  in  power.  They  seized  on  art,  and  set  it  vigor- 
ously at  work  to  illustrate  dogmas  and  extend  authority.  During 
the  thousand  years  that  they  controlled  it,  art  was  as  cramped 
in  expression  and  stationary  in  condition  as  it  had  ever  been 
among  the  Orientals  from  a  similar  cause.  Architecture  in  some 
degree  escaped  ;  its  necessities  at  times  giving  genius  a  more  am- 
ple scope  of  execution  than  was  permitted  to  sculpture  or  paint- 
ing by  themselves.  But  the  chief  features  of  the  new-born 
or  long  dead  art  —  for  during  this  period  it  is  difficult  to  draw 
the  line  between  the  last  touches  of  pagan  styles  and  the  fresh 
ones  of  Christian  hands  as  concerns  execution  —  were  ignorance 
and  immobility  ;  its  main  object  to  delineate  the  legends  and  doc- 
trines of  the  new  church  in  rude  and  striking  designs  of  almost 
childish  simplicity  of  composition  ;  and  its  tendency  to  multiply 
objects  of  superstitious  worship,  disguising  numberless  pagan 
ideas  and  habits  under  new  names.  Being  thus  violently  severed 
from  the  intellectual  freedom  which  had  made  it  so  estimable  in 
Greece,  art  was  thrown  back  to  its  infancy  in  point  of  science. 
It  swayed  the  human  mind  less  as  art  than  as  symbolism  and 
idolatry,  in  either  of  which  its  influence  is  more  profound  than 
in  its  own  right,  from  its  being  made  an  exponent  of  the  most 
awful  motives  that  can  affect  humanity.  But  this  influence 
depends  on  the  ignorance  of  the  spectator.  In  its  grossest  form 
it  shows  itself  as  fetichism ;  in  a  little  higher  stage  it  substitutes 
external  rites  and  images  for  inward  godliness ;  while  in  both 
aspects  it  appeals  to  the  lowest  intelligence,  or  to  that  sophistry 
which  looks  on  matter  as  its  god.  The  power  over  the  ignorant 
mind  is  in  the  ratio  of  its  actual  rudeness  or  hideousness,  the 
favorite  idols  of  all  pagan  nations  competing  in  this  respect,  as 
among  Catholics  the  most  sacred  pictures  are  invariably  the  most 
primitive  and  ugly,  like  the  black  virgins  ascribed  to  St.  Luke. 
It  really  seems  as  if  an  irrevocable  law  compels  art,  when  pros- 
tituted to  bigotry  and  untruth,  to  assume  effigies  corresponding  to 
these  motives :  just  as  when  animated  by  truth  and  freedom,  it 
embodies  their  forms.  It  will  be  instructive  to  contrast  classical 
and  Christian  art  as  inspired  by  their  diverging  motives. 


28  PRINCIPLES  OF  GRECIAN  TASTE. 


Tlie  Grecian  artist  was  impelled  both  by  his  aBsthetie  knowl- 
edge and  sensuous  creed  to  aim  at  expressing  the  highest  con- 
ceivable beauty.  Not  only  his  execution  must  be  perfect,  but 
What  was  his  choice  and  treatment  agreeable  or  noble.  In 
*tjiepagaf  form,  posc,  action,  drapery,  and  color  ;  in  the  render- 
artist.  inor  of  passion  and  even  pain  ;  in  short,  in  whatever 

False  art  of        °  •     -,   f       i  ,  ,. 

antiquity.  he  did,  he  was  required  by  the  public  taste,  and  at 
Thebes  by  statute,  to  avoid  the  ugly,  depraved,  and  ignoble. 
The  aim  was  to  exalt  humanity  by  keeping  in  view  its  finest 
aspects.  Prizes  were  given  to  handsome  men  and  women  in 
public  competition  as  models  of  physical  perfection.  Beauty 
actually  conferred  historical  fame  when  associated  with  mental 
gifts.  Indeed,  the  fact  and  theory  of  complete  beauty  usually 
are  in  accord  in  that  respect.  Gerome  has  made  familiar  the 
story  of  the  courtesan  Phryne,  the  abrupt  exposure  of  whose 
charms  by  her  advocate  to  an  Athenian  court  caused  her  ac- 
quittal of  the  charge  of  impiety,  an  accusation,  as  the  case  of 
Socrates  shows,  likely  to  have  had  a  fatal  ending.  But  that 
beauty  might  outweigh  justice  was  nothing  strange  in  the  race 
to  which  it  appealed. 

The  Greeks  believed  that  beautiful  objects  fostered  and  raised 
the  standard  of  beauty,  and  even  imparted  their  formative  mag- 
netism to  unborn  children  through  their  impressible  mothers. 
Their  joyous  games  were  an  incentive  to  manly  strength,  wom- 
anly grace,  and  general  elegance.  Those  of  the  Romans  begot 
a  lust  of  blood  and  cruelty.  While  the  Greeks  grew  to  be  hu- 
mane and  refined,  their  ambitious  neighbors  became  fierce  and 
rude.  Next  to  the  moral  discipline  of  Christian  ethics  as  a 
cogent  refiner  of  peoples,  comes  the  Grecian  passion  for  beauty. 
Winckelman  says  that  the  Arcadians,  being  compelled  to  study 
music  in  order  to  soften  their  manners,  changed  from  the  most 
morose  and  worst  behaved  to  the  most  honest  and  urbane  of  the 
Greeks. 

There  were  exceptions  to  this  heroic  idealism  of  art,  form- 
ing a  low  school,  whose  disciples  were  nicknamed,  on  account  of 
their  common  and  morbid  motives,  "  artists  of  filth."  Aristotle 
advised  parents  not  to  show  the  pictures  of  one  Pyrecius  to  the 
young,  lest  their  imaginations  be  soiled  by  his  ugly  images. 
Exaggeration  and  caricature  were  condemned,  as  was  also  vul- 
gar artifice  or  any  trickery  to  please  the  ignorant.  Indeed, 
Grecian  art  addressed  itself  to  a  national  taste  which  was  the 
fruit  of  long  experience  and  careful  investigation  of  its  funda- 


PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  RELIGIOUS  IDEA  IN  ART.  29 


mental  laws.  Its  beginnings  were  simple  and  crude.  The 
earliest  statues  were  built  up  of  different  materials,  tlie  more 
precious  being  used  for  the  extremities.  At  times  they  were 
painted  to  represent  dress,  and  even  clothed  or  bedizened  with 
finery  and  jewels,  —  practices  still  in  vogue  among  image-wor- 
shippers everywhere. 

Abundance  of  bad  and  false  art  has  come  down  from  antiq- 
uity, much  of  which  no  doubt  was  only  intended  for  cheap  out- 
door ornamentation,  or  is  the  product  of  its  decline.  Freaks, 
too,  it  had  of  gilding  and  coloring,  but  with  what  local  reason, 
or  on  what  aesthetic  principle,  it  is  impossible  now  to  decide. 
The  attempt  to  combine  hues  and  forms  under  conflicting  mo- 
tives and  conditions,  produces  antagonistic  effects,  and  seems  con- 
trary to  the  canons  of  taste.  For  evidence,  place  a  wax  image 
beside  a  bronze  or  marble  bust  of  the  same  person,  and  then 
say  whether  the  precise  imitation  of  complexion  and  shape  of 
the  emotionless  waxen  effigy  is  preferable  to  the  uncolored 
mind-rendering  material  !  Any  artifice  applied  to  pure  sculp- 
ture —  which  relies  on  form  alone  for  its  power  —  detracts 
from  its  spiritual  significance.  Marble  loses  even  by  excessive 
polish  or  finish,  though  less  than  by  tinting  to  give  it  the  look 
of  flesh,  or  of  painting  and  gilding  accessories  to  make  them 
seem  real.  Its  supremacy  as  an  art-vehicle  is  shaken  whenever 
its  purity  of  colorless  outline  is  disturbed.  A  combination  of 
various  marbles  and  stones  in  the  same  statue,  as  in  the  "  Apollo  " 
at  Naples,  whose  head,  hands,  and  lyre  are*  of  white  marble,  and 
the  drapery  of  porphyry,  destroys  that  unity  which  is  essential  to 
the  perfect  expression  of  the  fundamental  thought.  The  eye  is 
attracted  chiefly  to  the  details,  and  the  mind  left  in  wonderment 
at  the  ingenuity  of  the  labor  rather  than  edified  by  the  idea. 
In  the  worst  period  of  antique  sculpture,  glass  and  ivory  eyes, 
inlaid  lips,  and  similar  abortive  means  of  representing  life  were 
rife,  but  their  effect  is  as  ghastly  as  rouge  on  the  cheeks  of  a 
corpse.  It  is  a  causeless  falsehood,  which  deceives  none  and 
shocks  all.  Vulgar  art  met  with  no  permanent  favor  in  Greece. 
Such  specimens  as  exist  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  caprices 
of  patrons  or  special  exigencies.  The  famous  colossal  gold  and 
ivory  statues  of  Jupiter  and  Minerva  by  Phidias  were  made 
in  compliance  with  the  popular  religious  sentiment,  which  ex- 
acted that  its  favorite  deities  should  be  constructed  of  the 
richest  materials  by  the  hands  of  the  greatest  artist.  Elaborate 
skill  and  taste  were  displayed  in  their  details,  and  the  effect  as 


80 


ORIGIN  OF  POLYCHROIIY. 


a  whole  must  have  been  ornately  magnificent,  at  the  expense  of 
the  simpler  and  grander  qualities  of  sculpture.  Even  the  Apollo 
made  of  dark  green  basalt,  however  good  otherwise,  disappoints 
in  its  bad  choice  of  a  material  for  the  god  of  light. 

Undoubtedly  the  origin  of  polychromy  is  to  be  traced  among 
the  Greeks  as  the  Egyptians  to  the  sacred  significance  given  to 
colors  by  the  priests,  while  its  use  as  ornament  was  continued 
after  its  force  as  an  emblem  had  been  weakened  or  lost.  That 
it  was  largely  employed  in  connection  with  gilding,  sometimes 
actually  covering  the  entire  statue  with  paint,  at  others  as  a 
background  or  for  emphasizing  accessories,  and  with  rich  effect, 
there  is  ample  evidence ;  but  how  to  distuiguish  between  its  use 
in  a  typical  or  an  aesthetic  light,  we  cannot  now  exactly  tell, 
though  it  is  evident  that  both  might  be,  and  no  doubt  often 
were,  put  into  harmony,  to  their  mutual  gain. 
Athlete  of  the  The  ability  with  which  the  Grecian  sculptor  was 
Ither"^am.'^  able  to  dignify  an  act  in  itself  ignoble,  is  displayed  in 
i'^"'-  the  "  Lysippus,"  or  "  Athlete  of  the  Vatican."    He  is 

represented  scraping  the  sweat  from  his  arm,  but  the  faultless 
anatomy,  the  elastic  pose,  and  quiet  consciousness  of  health  and 
power,  suggest  in  the  classical  sense  the  "  godlike."  Much  of 
the  value  of  the  "  Modesty  "  in  the  same  room  depends  upon  its 
simplicity  of  treatment,  especially  in  the  chaste  arrangement  of 
the  drapery  and  the  perfect  repose  of  the  figure.  So,  too,  in 
the  "  Silence  "  of  the  Capitol,  note  how  by  subtlety  of  attitude 
it  impresses  its  motive  in  the  spectator !  In  these  examples  we 
perceive  the  same  consummate  skill  displayed  in  their  secondary 
as  well  as  primary  objects  ;  putting  all  parts  into  harmony,  and 
thus  making  that  complete  unity  which  gives  the  highest  charac- 
ter to  the  artist's  work.  Even  in  their  departures  from  the  he- 
roic style  into  what  approaches  the  modern  realistic,  an  equal 
thoroughness  obtains.  Nothing  is  left  to  chance  or  the  igno- 
rance of  the  public,  for  the  intended  effect.  An  old  woman  is 
rendered  with  pitiless  fidelity  of  decrepitude  and  countenance  of 
crime  or  despair,  as  well  as  a  drunken  female  of  the  same  mu- 
seum, with  a  no  less  forcible  exhibition  of  her  condition.  In 
the  representation  of  animal  life,  or  appeals  to  sympathy,  the 
Greek  sculptor  also  worked  as  knowingly  and  well. 

There  is  a  bust  of  ^sop  in  the  Villa  Albani  at  Kome,  the 
dwarfish  ugliness  of  which  agrees  with  the  common  notion  of 
his  features.  But  as  statue-portraiture  began  about  the  time  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  its  authenticity  is  questionable.    It  is  in- 


GRECIAN  STATUE-PORTRAITURE. 


31 


teresting,  however,  as  showing  a  disposition  at  an  early  period 
to  give  realistic  likenesses.  If  these  were  wanting,  the  Greeks 
created  effigies  of  Homer,  the  Seven  Sages,  and  other  eminent 
men  on  the  same  idealistic  principle  that  Christian  art  did  sub- 
sequently of  Christ,  the  Saints,  and  Apostles.  In  some  cases 
there  must  have  beeu  traditions  which  served  as  a  general 
guide,  but  as  with  the  Saviour,  St.  Peter,  and  St.  John,  these 
traditions  may  have  been  as  apocryphal  as  the  likenesses  based 
on  them.  The  principle  involved  in  the  antique  imaginary  por- 
traiture, being  the  very  essence  of  idealistic  art,  makes  it  worth 
our  while  to  consider  it. 

Its  object  was  the  exaltation  of  the  intellectual  over  the  mere 
physical,  though  keeping  them  in  harmony,  forming  a  heroic  or 
generic  type,  indicative  of  the  highest  qualities  of  the  personages 
represented.  By  this  theory  the  mind  is  viewed  as  the  perma- 
nent faculty,  and  the  body  the  transitory  feature  of  life.  What 
is  lost  in  outward  accuracy  of  changeable  form  is  gained  in  a 
knowledge  of  the  never  dying  mental  characteristics.  This  ideal- 
ism is  compatible  with  realistic  truth,  for  it  teaches  the  artist  to 
overlook  tlie  trivial  and  unimportant  both  of  spirit  and  matter, 
and  to  choose  only  that  of  each  which  best  expresses  the  finest 
qualities  of  the  individual  in  question.  Titian,  Velasquez,  Vero- 
nese, Holbein,  Leonardo,  and  Raphael  were  masters  of  this  prac- 
tice. I  believe  that  the  Greeks  must  have  been  equally  skillful 
in  refining  their  actual  portraiture,  as  they  are  superior  to  others 
in  creating  one  purely  imaginary.  We  now  see,  especially  on 
gems  and  medals,  sometimes  in  sculpture,  their  philosophers  and 
heroes  as  they  appeared  to  the  appreciative  minds  of  their  own 
race  long  after  all  personal  knowledge  of  them  had  passed  into 
the  shadows  of  history.  Lysippus  epitomizes  the  theory  when 
he  says,  "  The  older  artists  made  men  as  they  are ;  I,  as  they 
appeared  to  be."  Their  best  is  put  into  spiritual  sympathy  with 
the  spectator's  best  opinion  of  them.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
the  idealism  should  be  one  of  abstract  beauty,  but  it  must  give 
the  most  noteworthy  characteristics  of  a  great  man  in  an  ade- 
quate shape.  Contrast  the  ideal  heads  of  Plato,  Christ,  or  St. 
John  of  the  Greek  and  Italian  schools,  with  the  most  elaborated 
portraiture  in  the  naturalistic  method  of  the  best  German  and 
Dutch  masters,  and  decide  which  is  the  nobler  style  ! 

Roman  portraiture  was  hard  and  literal,  disguising  no  unwel- 
come truth,  but  reproducing  the  exact  thing,  be  it  a  squint, 
mole,  or  bald  head.    Not  even  Julius  Caesar's  power  could  pro- 


32 


ROMAN  PORTRAITURE. 


tect  him  from  its  matter-of-fact  practice.  This  characteristic  of 
the  seven-hilled  civilization  was  inherited  from  the  Etrnscans, 
whose  intellectual  standard  was  lower  than  the  Greeks.  Roman 
physiognomy  is  coarse  and  almost  brutal  in  comparison  with 
Grecian.  The  busts  of  their  public  men  indicate  a  predomi- 
nance of  animal  force  and  strength  of  will.  Few  display  much 
mental  refinement  or  evidence  of  a  fine  intellectual  tempera- 
ment. Many  of  the  emperors  are  only  gladiators  in  purple. 
Those,  like  Marcus  Aurelius  and  the  Antonines,  who  display 
superior  qualities,  formed  their  characters  by  the  study  of  Gre- 
cian philosophy.  The  realistic  portraiture  of  the  Romans  for- 
cibly illustrates  how  different  was  the  part  they  filled  in  history 
from  their  aesthetic  rivals,  while  their  relative  culture  and  amen- 
ity of  manners  is  made  apparent  by  the  estimation  which  each 
race  placed  on  art  itself. 

Roman  and  Phidias  was  the  honored  friend  of  Pericles.  Public 
ta^stf""^  competitions  in  art  were  instituted  at  a  very  early 
Sensuou.sness  period  in  Greece,  and  prizes  solemnly  bestowed  by 
on  sensua-  ^q^^q^qj^^  judges.  The  social  position,  incentives  to 
effects7fre-  ambition,  and  rewards  given  to  Grecian  artists  were 
ligion  in  art.  equal  to  those  of  tlieir  greatest  men  in  other  depart- 
ments of  genius.  During  the  same  period  in  Rome,  say  about 
300  B.  c,  a  noble  citizen  of  the  Fabian  family,  who  had 
gained  the  surname  of  Pictor  because  of  his  skill  in  painting, 
was  ridiculed  and  despised  by  his  rude  countrymen.  In  the 
lapse  of  centuries  fashion  converted  contempt  of  art  into  a 
restless  passion  for  its  works.  When  Tiberius  proposed  to 
remove  a  statue  of  an  athlete  —  mark  how  characteristic  of  the 
taste  of  the  Romans  was  the  profession  —  from  the  Baths  of 
Agrippa  to  his  own  palace,  he  was  obliged  to  desist,  lest  a  dan- 
gerous riot  should  arise. 

Roman  love  of  art  was  like  the  passion  of  a  man  for  his  mis- 
tress. The  more  beautiful  and  costly,  the  more  it  stirred  the 
envy  of  rivals,  and  bespoke  his  wealth  and  desires.  The  Greek, 
on  the  contrary,  loved  it  for  its  own  sake  as  the  crowning  jpy  of 
his  life.  One  of  the  most  ancient  of  his  songs  thus  condenses 
his  notions  of  the  essentials  of  happiness  :  First,  good  health  ; 
second,  Beauty  ;  third,  riches  honestly  acquired  ;  fourth,  social 
pleasure.  Beauty,  which  meant  art,  is  virtually  at  the  head  of 
the  list,  for  health  was  indispensable  to  his  aesthetic  theory  and 
practice.  We  may  object  to  the  sensuous  nature  of  his  felicity ; 
but  he  gilded  life  with  poetry,  while  the  Roman  defiled  it  by 
sensuality. 


FIRST  NUDE  STATUES. 


38 


Carried  to  extremes,  sensuousness  is  a  more  subtle  and  quite 
as  sure  a  corrupter  as  sensuality,  because  it  reduces  life  to  sheer 
sensation,  and  incites  to  selfishness  in  its  pursuit.  The  degree, 
not  the  quality,  of  the  gratification,  becomes  the  test  of  action. 
While  Grecian  art  was  influenced  by  religion,  its  aim  was  more 
to  the  majestic  and  sublime  than  to  the  sensuous-beautiful. 
Phidias  and  his  great  pupils  illustrate  the  pure  period,  which 
lasted  only  from  450  to  400  years,  b.  c.  ;  long  enough  to  give 
rise  to  the  noblest  sculpture  the  world  has  seen,  whenever  they 
were  free  to  execute  according  to  their  own  judgments,  as  is 
evinced  by  what  remains  of  the  marbles  of  the  Parthenon. 

Although  every  religion  in  the  form  of  a  creed  restricts  and 
narrows  art,  yet  it  invariably  exercises  over  it  a  salutary  moral 
control,  outside  of  the  tendency  to  make  it  subservient  to  super- 
stition. Sometimes  it  even  puts  a  restraint  on  it  in  this  respect. 
Numa  prohibited  effigies  of  the  Divinity  in  human  form.  The 
Persians  also  considered  it  indecent  to  represent  the  gods  in 
this  way.  What  Moses  and  Mohammed  enjoined  everybody 
knows.  But  we  do  not  give  sufficient  credit  to  the  pagan  clergy 
for  their  endeavors  to  keep  art  decent.  Egyptian  art  was  sin- 
gularly decorous  and  chaste.  Just  as  art  was  freed  from  priestly 
surveillance  it  tended  toward  sensuality.  Bigotry  imprisoned 
its  spirit,  but  kept  it  clean.  This  we  see  in  the  case  of  Savona- 
rola and  all  reformers,  while  unbelieving  rulers,  and  popes  of  the 
Borgian  and  Medicean  stamp,  encouraged  in  it  a  license  utterly 
opposed  to  religion  pure  and  unde filed. 

It  was  not  until  the  time  of  Praxiteles,  when  phil-  Female 
osophical  skepticism  had  greatly  undermined  the  ^^st  naked 
pagan  faith,  and  art  was  wholly  free,  that  the  naked  Venus. 
female  figure  was  attempted.  Even  then  art  had  its  own  canons 
of  modesty,  which  ennobled  the  nude,  and  long  preserved  it  from 
licentiousness.  Venus  and  Love,  being  considered  as  the  heaven- 
born  companions  of  the  severe-minded  Minerva,  were  made  as 
attractive  as  possible,  but  with  features  untainted  by  libidinous 
desire.  It  was  left  to  the  debauched  Romans  and  unbelieving 
moderns  to  show  them  shameless  and  mercenary.  In  the  degree 
that  Grecian  civilization  was  overborne  by  the  Roman,  its  art 
fell  from  the  service  of  gods  and  heroes  to  pandering  to  the 
lusts  of  men.  Praxiteles  and  his  followers,  substituting  the 
sensuous-pretty  and  the  graceful-beautiful  for  the  sublime,  al- 
though doing  perfect  work  of  its  kind,  lowered  the  moral  stand- 
ard of  sculpture,  and  prepared  the  way  for  its  subsequent  deg- 
3 


84 


PHYSICAL  TRAINING  OF  GREEKS. 


radation.  For  a  brief  period  Lysippus  upheld  its  dignity,  but 
could  not  lead  it  back  to  its  noblest  estate.  The  first  naked 
Venus  was  made  by  Praxiteles  in  connection  with  one  draped 
in  the  usual  style.  But  so  fixed  was  public  opinion  then  in 
favor  of  the  chaster  treatment  that  the  citizens  of  Athens  de- 
cided to  take  the  clothed  goddess  in  preference  to  the  nude.  It 
was  not  long,  however,  before  the  Cnedians,  to  whose  lot  the 
other  fell,  became  so  fond  of  their  statue  that  they  refused  to 
part  with  it  to  the  king  of  Bythinia  in  release  of  a  heavy  debt. 

The  physical  training  of  the  Greeks  favored  their  art  by  pro- 
viding it  with  models  of  strength  and  beauty  of  both  sexes  ; 
but  it  had  its  questionable  side.  Spartan  girls  exercised  naked 
in  games  intended  to  make  them  hardy  and  handsome.  This 
and  similar  practices  might  be  justified  in  their  aim  in  a  primi- 
tive age,  if  the  eyes  of  men  were  proof  against  sensual  allure- 
ments. In  Greece,  the  resistance  on  sanitary  and  religious 
grounds  to  sensuality  while  in  sight  of  temptation,  was  cogent 
for  a  time ;  but  in  the  end,  the  licentiousness  which  had  found  its 
way  into  their  art  crept  also  into  their  manners,  and  all  the  more 
insidiously  because  of  its  being  in  its  beginnings  justified  on 
reasons  of  faith  and  state.  Still  the  intellectual  refinement  of  the 
people,  joined  to  their  delight  in  the  beautiful,  retarded  somewhat 
their  descent  into  sensualism,  besides  making  this  condition  less 
complete  and  base  than  with  the  uncultivated  nations.  But 
to  this  end  it  was  sure  to  come  with  those  who  dedicated  maidens 
to  the  service  of  Venus,  and  made  prostitution  legal  and  respect- 
able.' Pindar  begins  an  ode  to  these  corrupting  neophytes  thus  : 
"  Young  girls,  dispensers  of  pleasure,  priestesses  of  Persuasion." 
At  the  fete  of  Apollo  of  Philesie,  prizes  were  given  to  those 
who  could  bestow  the  sweetest  kiss.  Competitions  like  this 
could  not  have  been  edifying  to  either  actor  or  spectator.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  the  artists,  carried  away  by  the  popular  cur- 
rent, finally,  as  Winkelman  observes,  worked  less  to  satisfy  the 
soul  than  the  senses ;  adhering,  however,  to  the  national  predilec- 
tion for  the  human  figure,  and  rejecting  as  low  innovations 
those  landscape  and  grotesque  motives,  which  at  a  later  period 
were  in  vogue  with  the  Romans,  to  the  detriment  of  the  nobler 
styles  of  decoration,  based  on  mythology  and  history.  Lucian 
gives  vent  to  his  dislike  of  the  new  fashion,  by  saying,  "  I  do 
not  look  in  pictures  for  towns  and  mountains.  I  wish  to  see 
men,  and  to  know  by  their  attitudes  and  actions  what  they  do 
and  say."    And  this  prejudice  against,  or  want  of  enjoyment  in 


DISLIKE  TO  LANDSCAPE. 


35 


the  landscape,  as  the  northern  races  regard  it,  seems  to  adhere 
to  all  classical  art,  and  to  have  been  transmitted  to  the  Latin 
races  of  our  time.  That  objected  to  by  Lucian  was  only  a 
crude  sort  of  wall-decoration,  executed  with  but  slight  regard  to 
truth  of  perspective  design  or  local  color.  The  basis  of  the 
Grecian  taste  was  its  passion  and  knowledge  of  human  beauty 
in  its  sensuous-intellectual  aspect.  We  will  now  inquire  into 
that  of  their  neighbors,  the  Etruscans. 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  ART  AND  RELIGION  OF  ETRURIA. 

MERICAN  civilization  leaves  in  the  mind  a  sensation 
of  rawness  and  restlessness.  The  imagination  turns 
for  relief  to  that  future  which  looms  up  so  impressively 
out  of  the  present.  There  is  no  escaping  the  con- 
viction, that  there  awaits  America  a  material  and 
moral  destiny,  unparalleled  in  history,  despite  the  assthetic  barren- 
ness of  to-day.  But  for  present  enjoyment  of  this  nature  we 
must  turn  to  countries  whose  poetry  and  art  are  mature,  or  so  in- 
terblended  with  the  past,  that  like  the  setting  sun,  they  paint  the 
distant  horizon  in  impassioned  purple  and  gold,  dissolving  it  into 
shapes  that  speak  of  transcendent  things.  America  is  the  land 
of  promise,  as  Europe  is  of  realization  in  art.  The  mystery  lies 
in  a  primeval  nature  which  unlocks  its  wealth  to  every  toiler. 
There  is  wanted  that  profounder  mystery  which  enshrouds  a  spent 
civilization,  whose  arts  still  survive  to  announce  its  former  great- 
ness. 

Of  all  the  old  peoples  of  Italy  that  have  made  an  impression 
on  modern  life,  none  interest  more  than  the  Etruscans.  They 
have  left  a  written  language  which  no  one  can  interpret  ;  stu- 
pendous works,  which  time  fails  to  destroy  ;  and  a  rich  and 
suggestive  art,  whose  preservation  is  due  to  the  silence  of  the 
grave,  during  nearly  thirty  centuries  of  undisturbed  slumber. 
Everywhere  their  cities  crowned  picturesque,  impregnable 
heights,  rejoicing  in  varied  views,  pure  air,  and  excessive  climb- 
ing as  greatly  as  modern  towns  delight  in  the  easy  access,  heavy 
atmosphere,  and  confined  scenery  of  the  lowlands.  Their  in- 
habitants were  a  strong-limbed,  broad-headed,  industrious  race, 
given  to  road  and  sewer  making,  canal-digging,  and  taming  Na- 
ture generally.  They  were  religious  too,  commercial,  manufac- 
turing ;  keen  in  business,  luxurious,  not  unmindful  of  beauty, 
but  preferring  the  strength  and  comfort  that  comes  of  a  more 
practical  view  of  things :  a  people,  in  the  end,  whose  hard-earned 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  ETRUSCANS. 


37 


riches  and  mechanical  science  failed  to  save  their  state  from  an 
ambitious,  warlike  neighbor.  Though  subdued  by  arms,  their 
arts  and  polity  overcame  the  conqueror.  For  centuries  they 
ruled  the  seas,  and  were  the  great  wave-lords  of  antiquity. 
Engb'sh  in  their  maritime  power,  they  had  a  similar  liking  for 
horse-racing  and  pugilism.  Their  origin  is  lost  in  the  remotest 
history  of  the  East.  Nevertheless,  their  earliest  civilization  was 
indubitably  filtered  through  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  sources. 
Some  of  their  primitive  work  has  a  decided  look  of  the  Nile, 
while  there  exist  paintings  and  sculptures  which  bear  a  like- 
ness to  those  of  Nineveh. 

Leaving  the  first  Etruscans  undisturbed   in  their  Sepulchres. 
historic- shrouds,  we  will  pry  into  their  Italian  annals, 
as  their  art  may  be  called,  because  of  the  want  of  a  key  to  the 
numerous  inscriptions  that  still  survive  in  their  tongue.  Most 
of  these,  being  monumental,  are  an  unflattering  commentary  on. 
the  egotistical  practice  of  laudatory  epitaphs  in  general.  The^ 
Etruscan  Smith  is  no  whit  the  more  famous  for  them  than  will 
be  any  of  their  modern  imitators  in  the  eloquence  of  a  grave- 
yard literature,  after  the  final  settlement  of  their  estates  ha& 
dropped  their  names,  riches,  and  honors  into  oblivion.  But 
while  our  successors  ages  hence  will  have  nothing   to  thank 
Smith  of  to-day  for  in  putting  himself  decorously  into  the  family 
vault,  we  owe  much  to  the  ancient  Smith  for  adding  to  his  corpse 
the  coveted  objects  of  his  life,  and  by  painting  and  carving,  show- 
ing us  how  he  passed  his  time,  what  he  thought  of  the  present  andi 
future  state,  his  favorite  tastes  and  occupations,  all  of  which  posthu- 
mous gossip  fellow-sympathy  makes  mortals  anxious  to  know  of 
each  other,  particularly  when  separated  by  great  blanks  in  his- 
tory.   For  a  nation  that  did  so  much  for  civilization,  whose  gifts 
to  it  are  in  use  now,  the  Etruscans  are  unfortunate  in  fame. 
The  greedy  Romans  owed  to  them  almost  everything  that  made 
themselves  respectable,  but  were  careful  that  posterity  should 
not  know  their  full  obligation.    Indeed,  the  civilization  of 
Etruria  was  so  completely  engulfed  in  Roman  domination,  that 
only  antiquarians  give  a  thought  to  their  separate  political  "exist- 
ence.   Their  civil  and  domestic  life  is  interesting,  on  account  of 
its  beaver-like  common  sense  and  Anglo-Saxon  features  in  some 
particulars.    The  Yankee  might  call  the  old  Etruscans  his  cous- 
ins, on  many  considerations.    I  should  bewail  their  loss,  if  I 
thought  Time  was  ever  unjust  in  its  revenges.    Could  we  see 
the  whole  truth,  their  fate  would,  without  doubt,  appear  to  be 


38 


SITES  OF  ETRUSCAN  CITIES. 


clearly  the  blasted  fruit  of  their  own  rearing.  Curiosity  is  legiti- 
mate when  sympathy  would  be  superfluous. 

Greece  and  Judaea  are  as  much  vital  forces  to-day  in  civiliza- 
ation  as  when  Socrates  questioned  and  Isaiah  prophesied,  be- 
cause their  literature  makes  their  immortal  thoughts  as  familiar 
to  every  generation  of  men  as  those  of  its  own  intellectual 
kings.  But  that  of  Etruria  is  literally  a  voice  of  the  dead, 
being  the  signs  of  things  rather  to  be  guessed  than  positively 
known.  The  names  of  its  artists,  rulers,  and  teachers,  if  found 
at  all,  are  mere  blanks,  or  so  interwoven  with  fable  as  to  have 
no  weight  in  history.  We  gather  from  them  that  however  dis- 
tinguished a  nation  may  become  in  trade  and  the  common  arts, 
unless  it  possesses  a  literature  inspired  by  genius,  it  drops  as 
easily  and  as  little  regretted  out  of  the  memory  of  mankind  as 
any  individual  cotton-lord  of  Lowell  or  Birmingham  at  his  de- 
cease. That  which  can  be  immediately  replaced  has  no  perma- 
nent, universal  value. 

If  America,  during  her  opportunity  of  material  prosperity, 
does  not  secure  a  high  position  in  art  and  literature,  in  her  deca- 
dence she  too  will  disappear  out  of  history  as  has  Etruria,  leav- 
ing only  a  great  shadow  on  the  dial-plate  of  time,  on  which  an- 
liquaries  only  can  trace  a  few  scattered  lights.  No  American  who 
inquires  into  the  moral  science  of  history  can  escape  tliis  humili- 
ating conviction ;  for  he  will  perceive  that  nowhere  has  there 
existed  a  noble  art  and  literature  without  corresponding  eleva- 
tion of  thought  and  feeling,  while  the  fame  of  Carthage,  Tyre, 
and  the  nations  of  antiquity  renowned  only  for  wealth  and  lux- 
ury is  as  dust  in  the  balance  compared  with  the  esteem  in  which 
every  petty  town  is  held  which  was  the  birthplace  of  the  gen- 
ius that  marks  a  mental  epoch. 

Independent  of  other  inducement,  it  is  interesting  to  make 
the  tour  of  ancient  Etruria  to  examine  the  sites  of  her  chief 
marts  of  commerce,  and  to  enjoy  the  loveliness  of  the  landscapes 
about  them.  Let  us  begin  with  Volterra,  overlooking  the  Med- 
iterranean, the  Pisan  territory,  and  a  Plutonic  stretch  of  coun- 
try at  its  feet,  split  and  warped  by  concealed  fires  into  yawning 
fury  of  chasm  and  savage  sterility  of  soil.  Its  position  marks 
it  for  a  doom  as  tragic  as  that  of  the  cities  of  the  plain  of 
Sodom,  for  it  seems  destined  to  be  engulfed  in  a  vast  quicksand, 
which  slowly  swallows  by  immense  mouthfuls  the  mountain  on 
which  it  stands.  Already  the  Church  of  St.  Guisti  and  what- 
ever was  in  the  vicinity  has  disappeared,  while  in  the  north  it 


CHIUSI. 


39 


now  touches  the  Badia,  from  which  the  monks  have  fled  in  dis- 
may, leaving  their  venerable  cloisters  quaking  on  the  brink  of  a 
sliding  precipice  of  sand  several  hundred  feet  in  height,  which 
leans  towards  the  abyss  of  hidden  waters  that  are  sapping  the 
soil  above  them  with  steady  progress.  Each  year  the  distance 
lessens  between  it  and  the  city,  fascinated  by  the  peril.  Mas- 
sive walls  of  three  thousand  years'  standing  may  induce  a 
feeling  of  security ;  but  after  following  their  long  circuit  in  won- 
der at  the  solidity  and  vastness  of  the  construction,  it  is  start- 
ling to  come  suddenly  upon  a  vaster  work  of  Nature  which  men- 
aces at  any  moment  to  destroy  them  utterly,  and  bury  the  peo- 
ple alive  that  trusted  in  their  strength.  The  idea  of  a  city 
being  sucked  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  interred  as  it  were  at 
one  stroke,  is  awful.  Yet  with  a  stupidity  that  seems  past  be- 
lief, great  as  is  man's  capacity  this  way,  the  Volterrians  refused 
to  permit  a  citizen  of  Leghorn  to  drain  the  quicksand  while  it 
was  possible,  on  condition  of  having  the  land  for  himself  that 
he  reclaimed  from  devastation.  Possibly  they  feared  the  loss 
of  one  of  their  "  sights,"  which  are  food  and  raiment  to  the  im- 
poverished cities  of  Italy. 

Orvieto  is  as  firmly  as  Volterra  is  uneasily  placed  on  a  rock, 
its  walls  in  part  rising  directly  from  the  perpendicular  preci- 
pice and  seemingly  several  hundred  feet  high.  Perugia  vaga- 
bondizes along  the  crests  of  a  group  of  hills  or  terraces,  evin- 
cing a  disposition  to  reach  the  rich  valleys  below.  Chuisi,  with 
a  glorious  lookout  over  two  lakes,  girt  with  a  green  swell  of 
mountains  whose  olive  gardens  and  vineyards  rise  and  sink  un- 
til they  dash  their  fragrance  against  its  ugly  walls,  shows  a  dark 
spot  in  a  lovely  background.  The  kingly  virtues  of  Porsenna 
are  as  much  forgotten  in  his  now  beggarly  capital  as  is  his 
tomb,  once  a  wonder  of  the  world.  But  what  else  could  happen 
in  a  nest  of  excavators  whose  most  productive  industry  is  rifling 
graves,  fleecing  the  visitor,  and  getting  up  antiquities  for  the 
market.  My  landlord  could  give  me  nothing  to  eat  tenderer 
than  the  integuments,  —  it  might  have  been  of  an  ances- 
tral mummy,  so  tough  and  skinny  was  the  substance,  and  so  in 
sympathy  with  his  own  nature,  —  but  he  had  to  offer  Ms  Etrus- 
can museum  for  fifty  thousand  francs. 

The  ascent  to  the  bedrooms  was  guarded  by  a  long  file  of 
lugubrious  cinerary  urns  of  archaic  rudeness.  In  fact,  Chuisi 
is  neither  cheerful  nor  tidy,  but  still  has  some  genuine  art 
and  objects  of  archeological  interest,  although  its  best  coUee- 


40 


THE  MAREMMA. 


tion,  the  Casucinni,  has  recently  been  sold  to  the  city  of 
Palermo. 

The  Maremma  is  a  vast  cemetery  of  Etruscan  cities  whose 
once  vigorous  life  is  replaced  by  pestilence  and  desolation. 
Scarcely  a  spadeful  of  earth  can  be  turned  up  without  dis- 
turbing the  dust  of  their  inhabitants.  An  equally  picturesque 
selection  of  sites  obtains  here  as  elsewhere.  Cortona  is  the 
queen  in  this  respect,  though  Citta  della  Pieve,  garlanded  by 
oak  and  chestnut  forests,  looks  on  a  landscape  not  so  diversified, 
but  in  some  details  more  charming. 

I  opine  their  founders  had  no  greater  liking  for  the  landscape, 
than  modern  Italians.  Sanitary  and  political  considerations  led 
them  to  choose  the  hills.  Before  the  plains  were  drained  and 
planted,  they  were  unwholesome.  Yet  in  locating  their  towns,  and 
disposing  their  huge  walls  and  gateways,  they  must  have  been 
guided  by  some  latent  instinct  of  the  beautiful,  even  in  a  land 
where  Nature  is  so  prodigal  of  it  that  it  is  difficult  not  to  secure  a 
share  of  her  charms  in  building  either  villa  or  city.  Their  effects 
of  landscape  could  scarcely  have  been  made  more  delightful  had 
their  situations  been  expressly  chosen  with  this  end  in  view. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  specify  the  antiquarian  distinctions  of 
Etruscan  art.  The  better  way  to  get  at  its  general-  characteris- 
tics is  to  study  the  contents  of  the  tombs.  These  were  exca- 
vated or  built  much  like  the  dwellings  of  the  living  in  ground- 
plan,  except  when  they  took  the  form  of  mausoleums,  which 
were  constructed  on  an  immense  scale  with  a  labyrinthine  inte- 
rior. Their  ruins  are  more  like  the  works  of  Nature  than  man. 
The  walls  and  ceilings  of  towns  were  lavishly  sculptured  and 
painted,  and  when  first  opened,  these  decorations  are  quite  per- 
fect. After  an  experience  of  the  ghastly  relics  of  our  sepul- 
chres, it  is  with  pleased  astonishment  one  enters  an  Etiuscan 
house  of  the  dead.  If  it  be  one  hitherto  undisturbed,  the  vis- 
itor may  find  himself  as  it  were  in  the  presence  of  the  original 
proprietors.  Apartments  opening  one  into  another  have  a  look 
of  domestic  life,  while  the  ornamentation  is  not  confined  to  myth- 
ological or  symbolical  motives,  but  is  interspersed  with  scenes  of 
festivity,  games,  races,  threatrical  exhibitions,  and  whatever  the 
occupants  once  enjoyed  in  the  flesh  ;  indicating  that  they  fancied 
they  were  entering  on  a  new  life  resembling  in  many  particulars 
their  old.  It  shows  in  another  form  the  Indian  notion  of  new  and 
better  hunting-grounds  in  the  lands  of  the  Great  Spirit.  Still 
good  and  evil  had  much  to  do  with  the  reception  that  awaited 


ETRUSCAN  TOMBS. 


41 


them.  Guardian  genii,  effigies  of  the  avengers  of  wrong,  pro- 
tectors of  the  virtuous,  symbols  of  immortality,  occult  doctrines 
put  into  pictorial  form,  gazed  at  them  from  carved  and  frescoed 
roofs  and  walls,  which  were  protected  from  wanton  hands  by 
figures  of  monstrous  serpents,  demons,  or  the  snake-entwined 
visage  of  the  terrible  Medusa.  There  were  too  many  valuable 
objects  deposited  in  the  tombs  for  them  to  be  safe  from  the  cu- 
pidity of  the  living,  unless  they  were  made  awful  as  well  as 
sacred  to  the  common  imagination.  Indeed,  there  is  reason  for 
believing  that  deposits  of  jewels  were  sometimes  covertly  with- 
drawn by  the  family  after  publicly  complying  with  the  estab- 
lished customs,  or  perhaps  were  stolen  by  conscience-seared 
workmen,  who  knew  how  to  effect  an  entrance  into  sepulchres 
of  their  own  making.  Enough  valuable  objects  have,  however, 
been  left  to  stock  the  museums  of  Europe  ;  the  fruit  of  a  no- 
tion that  their  owners,  needing  them  in  the  life  to  which  they 
were  going,  kept  them  ever  within  reach. 

On  entering  a  tomb  at  Volterra  I  was  surprised  to  see  wine 
and  food  placed  on  one  of  the  urns.  A  flickering  torch  cast  a 
mysterious  light  on  the  pale  figures  that  looked  at  me  with  great, 
staring  eyes,  holding  out  their  libation-cups  as  if  to  be  filled.  I 
asked  my  peasant-guide  if  his  ancestors  still  hankered  for  the 
wine  of  their  old  farms."  O,  no,"  was  the  reply ;  "  we  put  it 
here  to  cool  for  ourselves."  It  seems  one  must  come  to  Italy  to 
learn  best  how  to  utilize  the  grave-chill  in  a  more  practical 
sense  than  that  of  a  moral  refrigerator  or  ethical  bugbear. 

If  the  tomb  be  anterior  to  the  Roman  custom  of  burning 
corpses,  we  may  find  the  noble  proprietors,  male  and  female,  laid 
out  in  state  on  bronze  biers  or  couches,  looking  life-like,  with 
their  jewelry  and  armor  on,  as  prompt  in  all  appearance  for 
love's  or  war's  conquests  as  ever.  Their  favorite  furniture,  vases, 
bronzes,  articles  of  toilet,  toys  of  children,  and  engraved  primers 
are  in  their  places  about  them,  ready  to  be  used.  A  few  minutes' 
action  of  the  fresh  atmosphere  reduces  the  bodies  to  dust,  but  the 
articles  remain  as  perfect  as  when  put  there.  The  family  scene 
of  some  sepulchres  is  made  more  real  by  rows  of  portrait  statues 
in  various  attitudes  on  urns  and  sarcophagi  arranged  after  the 
manner  of  a  fashionable  reception.  In  those  days  the  guests 
mostly  reclined  at  banquets.  We  find  the  figures  often  in 
that  position.  If  husband  and  wife,  they  are  decorously  embra- 
cing, or  the  arm  of  the  man  is  caressingly  put  on  the  shoulder  of 
his  partner.    Each  is  draped  as  in  life  with  their  usual  orna- 


42 


ETRUSCAN  REALISM. 


ments  and  insignia  of  rank.  The  base  which  contains  the  bod- 
ies or  ashes  is  elaborately  sculptured,  and  sometimes  gilded  and 
painted ;  the  scenes  being  taken  from  the  lives  of  the  deceased 
or  the  current  mythology. 

Such  tombs  constitute  the  libraries  and  museums  of  Etruscan 
history.  Without  them  we  should  have  known  next  to  nothing  of 
it,  and  modern  art  would  have  lost  its  most  graceful  and  precious 
models  of  jewelry,  bronzes,  and  vases.  How  abundant  such  ob- 
jects were  we  may  gather  from  the  fact  that  Flavins  Flaccus 
stole  from  one  small  town,  the  ancient  Volsumium,  two  thousand 
bronze  statues,  as  one  part  of  his  plunder.  Some  believe  that 
the  Etruscans  anticipated  and  were  superior  to  the  Greeks  in  the 
working  of  bronze  and  making  fictile  vases.  Each  people  pos- 
sessed a  distinctive  art,  the  origin  of  which  was  equally  rude 
and  archaic,  but  both  were  perfected  in  Italy,  the  Greek  by 
means  of  colonies  in  Southern  Italy,  and  the  Etruscan  in  the 
north,  until  their  styles  so  commingled,  or  were  so  interchanged 
by  commerce  that  they  seem  to  the  inexperienced  eye  to  be  the 
product  of  one  people. 

Etruscan  art,  notwithstanding,  has  its  root  as  firmly  in  national 
ideas  and  habits  as  the  Greek.  Instead  of  a  keen  sense  of  ideal 
beauty,  it  manifests  a  love  of  fact.  Essentially  realistic  in  spirit, 
it  prefers  vigor  and  strength,  and  tells  its  story  frankly  and  for- 
cibly rather  than  gracefully  or  elegantly.  Before  it  profited  by 
Greek  examples,  it  was  heavy  and  exaggerated  in  design  with 
an  unwitting  leaning  to  the  grotesque,  often  coarse,  but  expres- 
sive and  sincere.  Ignoring  the  principles  of  Greek  selection  and 
idealism,  it  looked  more  to  common  nature  for  inspiration,  striv- 
ing to  make  it  look  exactly  as  it  was,  and  not  as  it  should  be 
accordhjg  to  the  laws  of  lesthetics.  Nevertheless  it  possessed  a 
lofty  creative  faculty,  which  at  times  raised  its  feeling  to  the  sub- 
lime. This  supernal,  mystical  element  came  to  it  from  the 
Oriental  blood  of  the  race.  Homer  inspires  alike  Grecian  and 
Etruscan  art,  but  radical  differences  in  treatment  and  execution 
of  the  same  motive  are  often  evinced. 

Ideas  of  ^        ''^^^      csscntial  distinction  in  their  ideas  of 

ftuure^ufe  ^^^^^^  ^^^^  futurc  life  as  seen  in  their  sepulchral  art. 
Domestic  Apparently  the  Greek  was  so  absorbed  in  sensuous 
Yoiunni  enjoyment,  or  his  religious  faith  was  so  shaken  by  his 
sculptures.  tcachers  of  philosophy,  that  he  formed  no  very  precise 
notion  of  his  condition  in  the  next  world.  Vague  and  shadowy 
it  appears,  though  often  beautifully  poetical  according  to  the  in- 


DEMONISM  OF  ETRURIA. 


43 


terior  sense  of  some  myths,  but  lacking  the  exhortative  and  puni- 
tive character  of  the  more  stable  and  sterner  Egyptian  and 
Etruscan  dogmas.  Respect  for  the  gods,  love  of  beauty,  heroism, 
present  enjoyment,  viewing  the  future  speculatively  or  leaving  it 
to  expound  itself,  —  such  was  his  theology.  But  the  Etruscan 
was  more  positive  and  practical  in  spite  of  its  element  of  Orien- 
tal mysticism.  Indeed  this  positiveness  may  be  traced  to  the 
strong  faith  of  his  Asiatic  ancestry,  whose  imaginations  were  ex- 
tremely susceptible  to  spiritual  influences  from  unseen  powers 
and  whose  minds  were  trained  to  reject  the  pantheistic  notions 
of  the  more  versatile  Greeks.  None  were  more  so  than  the 
Jews  and  Persians.  Coming  down  from  them,  this  habit  of  un- 
questioning reliance  on  a  revealed  hereafter  rooted  itself  in  the 
creeds  of  Christendom,  and  most  positively  in  the  tenets  of  Prot- 
estantism. Whenever  revelation  as  defined  by  a  church  has 
come  into  collision  with  science,  religion  has  tried  to  drive  the 
other  out  of  the  field  of  inquiry,  by  branding  it  as  heresy  or 
apostasy.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  far  the  Etruscan  idea  of 
a  future  existence  coincides  with  the  so-called  Christian. 

That  joyous  reliance  on  his  fancy  which  contented  his  neigh- 
bor, evidently  did  not  satisfy  the  conscience  of  the  Etruscan. 
Like  the  northerns  whose  harshest  doctrines  find  shape  in  the 
diabolism  of  Calvinistic  theology,  he  too,  must  have  a  material  hell, 
with  suitable  demons,  but  with  this  noteworthy  difference  :  his 
final  doom  was  adjudged,  not  according  to  his  faith,  but  his 
works.  He  was  sentenced  by  infallible  judges  according  to  his 
good  and  evil  deeds,  which  were  weighed  in  infallible  scales. 
Etruscan  tomb-sculpture  is  much  taken  up  by  these  solemn 
scenes.  An  expectant  fiend  sits  outside  the  door  leading  to 
torment.  Directly  opposite  is  the  entrance  to  the  regions  of 
happiness,  guarded  by  a  good  angel.  The  soul  on  trial  is  attended 
by  the  two  good  and  bad  genii,  one  of  which  was  supposed  to 
have  been  its  protector,  and  the  other  its  tempter,  while  living. 
As  either  is  able  to  turn  the  scales  of  justice,  so  is  the  eternal 
condition  of  their  charge  decided. 

The  deraonism  of  Etruria  is  sterner  and  less  mystical  than 
the  Egyptian,  and  not  so  frightful  as  that  of  Christendom. 
Images  of  terror,  however,  are  common,  and  made  as  ugly  and 
repulsive  as  those  of  the  opposite  character  are  made  handsome 
and  attractive.  Typhon,  one  of  the  angels  of  death,  is  a  beauty, 
compared  with  his  modern  namesake,  while  big-eared,  heavy- 
limbed  Charon,  with  his  fatal  hammer,  is  mild  and  pleasing  be- 


44 


PURITY  OF  ETRUSCAN  ART. 


side  Spinello's  mediaeval  Beelzebub.  Their  most  successful  essays 
at  ferocious  ugliness  give  a  grotesque  exaggeration  of  the  negro 
physiognomy  and  human  form.  Serpents  figure  largely,  both  in  a 
good  and  bad  sense,  as  a  symbol  of  eternity.  The  important 
truth  recognized  in  the  sepulchral  art  is  an  immediate  judgment 
passed  on  each  soul  at  its  exit  from  earth,  and  the  substantiality 
of  the  rewards  or  punishments  that  await  it. 

The  Etruscans  were  eminently  a  domestic  people  of  warm 
social  affections.  Woman  seems  to  have  held  a  position  equal  to 
man's.  She  is  constantly  represented  as  sharing  his  cares  and 
joys.  The  wife  was  highly  honored,  not  subordinated,  as  in 
Greece,  to  an  accomplished  class  of  courtesans;  nor  was  the 
relation  stained  by  such  laxity  as  at  a  subsequent  period  de- 
filed Roman  households.  Indeed,  Etruscan  art  is  singularly 
pure  and  serious,  except  as  it  borrowed  from  foreign  sources  its 
dissolute  Bacchic  rites.  But  these  were  never  very  popular. 
Their  artists  prefer  exhibiting  the  natural  emotions  with  touching 
directness  and  simplicity.  One  favorite  subject  was  the  death- 
parting  of  families.  The  husband,  wife,  child,  lover,  or  friend, 
as  the  case  may  be,  embraces  or  tenderly  shakes  the  hand  of  the 
dying,  whose  features  express  entire  resignation,  while  the  group 
about  are  moved  with  grief,  but  all  seem  animated  by  a  convic- 
tion of  reunion  in  a  future  state.  Children  are  held  to  the  pale 
lips  to  take  their  last  kiss,  and  the  pet  dog  watches  in  silent 
sympathy  the  hired  mourners  perform  their  functions.  The 
dignity  and  courtesy  manifested  by  the  principals  in  these  fare- 
wells show  that  no  doctrinal  despair  poisoned  their  latest  hours. 
They  seem  rather  to  look  upon  the  separation  as  one  does  a  caU 
to  a  long  journey.  A  spirit-horse  for  the  man,  and  a  chariot  for 
a  woman,  are  always  depicted  quietly  waiting  outside  with  their 
winged  attendants,  until  they  are  needed  to  carry  the  departed  to 
their  new  land.  If  death  has  already  occurred,  their  torches  are 
reversed. 

The  Greeks  loved  to  look  on  death  in  a  sensuously  beautiful 
shape,  like  Endymion  sleeping  in  Hylas,  borne  away  by  lovely 
water-nymphs.  They  wished  to  disguise  its  dismal  features. 
It  was  best  regarded  as  a  sweet  slumber  or  a  delightsome  ravish- 
ment. An  Etruscan  shielded  his  senses  by  no  such  poetical  ex- 
pedients. He  felt  it  to  be  a  real  journey  to  a  new  country,  and 
so  represented  it  for  good  or  bad  on  the  evidence  of  character. 
His  artistic  creations  to  people  the  unseen  world  were  not  simply 
deified,  supersensiious  human  beings,  but  a  distinct  supernal 


TOMB  OF  THE  VOLUNNI. 


45 


race,  with  attributes  corresponding  to  their  spiritual  functions. 
We  have  seen  what  his  devils  were.  His  genii,  furies,  and 
other  celestials  were  grand  in  idea,  often  sublime  ;  and  as  beauti- 
ful as  he  could  make  them.  They  were  more  elevated  in  con- 
ception and  functions  than  those  of  the  Grecian  mythology  ;  fit 
precursors  of  Giotto's,  Orgagna's,  and  Luca  Signorelli's  angels 
and  archangels.  In  truth,  mediaeval  art  had  not  much  to  change 
in  adjusting  this  phase  of  the  antique  to  its  own  purposes.  The 
infant  Jupiter  in  the  arms  of  his  nurse,  of  the  Campagna  bas- 
reliefs,  is  the  legitimate  model  of  subsequent  Madonnas.  But 
the  most  striking  of  their  supernal  effigies  are  the  two  Furies 
which  guard  the  portals  of  the  chief  sarcophagus  in  the  Volunni 
tomb  at  Perugia. 

The  contents  of  this  family  vault  merit  the  more  attention 
because  of  their  pure  Etruscan  character  in  the  best  time  of 
art,  when  its  native  strength  was  tempered  by  Grecian  feeling. 
Several  generations  are  here  deposited  in  elegant  urns,  all  ad- 
mirable, especially  two  that  face  the  entrance  to  the  principal 
chamber.  One  holds  the  ashes  of  the  head  of  the  house  ;  the 
other,  the  remains  of  a  lady  of  the  same  name.  Both  monu- 
ments are  remarkable  for  extreme  simplicity,  pure  style,  breadth 
of  design,  and  refined  adaptation  to  their  honored  purpose.  The 
man  lies  in  a  half  upright  posture  on  a  richly  draped  couch, 
with  his  head  upraised.  He  is  not  dead,  as  we  moderns  persist 
in  representing  our  departed,  as  if  disbelieving  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  and  believing  firmly  in  impressing  on  the 
mind  disagreeable  images  of  material  dissolution  ;  nor  does  he 
placidly  sleep,  as  the  mediaevalists,  with  better  taste  and  feeling, 
represent  their  dead,  while  awaiting  the  universal  resurrection ; 
but  with  more  truth  than  either,  he  lives. 

This  vital  characteristic  displays  the  skill  of  the  artist  in  pre- 
serving the  likeness  without  any  loss  of  solemnity  of  motive. 
The  figures  in  question  appear  to  be  the  veritable  individuals 
they  represent ;  receiving  us  with  the  same  dignity  they  would 
have  shown,  had  our  call  been  two  thousand  years  earlier,  before 
they  had  entered  into  their  marble-silence.  We  learn  from 
from  them  that  their  relations  believed  they  entered  at  once  into 
a  new  existence  without  an  intermediate  sleep,  of  uncertain  dura- 
tion or  purgatorial  probation  ;  ideas  common  to  the  Protestants 
and  Catholics.  I  understand  the  Etruscan  on  his  coffin  to  say, 
"  I  am  still  my  identical  self,  called  to  a  new  part  in  life,  but 
retaining  every  experience  which  made  me  what  I  was ;  any 


46  ETRUSCAN  SUPERNAL  SCULPTURE. 


change  depends  on  processes  of  growth  and  development  anal- 
ogous to  those  which  constituted  my  personality  on  earth. 
Meantime  I  am  an  Etruscan  gentleman,  quite  at  your  service." 
These  old  pagans  took  a  more  common-sensed  view  of  the  doc- 
trine of  immortality  than  moderns  do.  They  may  have  overmuch 
sensualized  their  notion,  by  too  palpably  connecting  it  with  an 
exhibition  of  the  pleasures  of  this  life ;  but  as  they  made  the 
degree  of  enjoyment  hereafter  to  depend  on  the  right  use  of 
present  gifts,  their  test  of  worthiness  was  both  salutary  and 
hopeful,  as  the  moral  world  was  then  constituted. 

The  base  of  the  chief  of  the  Volunni  monuments  combines 
simplicity  of  treatment  with  a  sublime  motive,  the  profound 
spirituality  of  which  is  excelled  only  by  Blake's  design  of 
"  Death's  Door ; "  a  similar  suggestion,  which  to  my  mind  is  the 
most  eloquent  composition  as  yet  conceived  by  Christian  art  to 
foreshadow  the  entrance  of  a  human  being  into  eternal  life.  The 
Etruscan  effigies  do  not  so  much  express  the  fact  as  the  mysteries 
that  attend  it.  On  each  side  of  the  door  representing  the  pas- 
sage from  the  tomb  to  the  new  existence,  sits  a  colossal,  winged 
female,  in  whom  the  highest  intellectual  attributes  of  both  sexes 
are  united,  devoid  of  any  sexual  feeling.  They  are  chastely 
draped,  and  wear  sandals.  One  hand  holds  a  burning  torch,  and 
the  other  is  slightly  turned  towards  the  door,  with  an  expression 
on  their  features  as  if  they  were  about  to  reveal  the  great  secret 
of  what  comes  after  death.  In  reality  these  figures  are  not 
three  feet  high,  but  so  grandly  treated  and  conceived  as  to  im- 
press the  spectator's  mind  at  the  first  glance  with  an  idea  of 
supernal  force  and  functions.  Although  sitting  with  their  feet 
drawn  upwards  and  crossed,  the  sculptor  has  given  them  a  self- 
supporting  look,  as  if  they  needed  no  material  aid  in  any  posi- 
tion ;  organic  will  alone  sufficing  to  put  tliem  in  repose  or  motion. 
In  this  subtle  suggestion  of  the  triumph  of  spirit  over  matter, 
they  surpass  Michael  Angelo,  who  never  wholly  divests  his 
sibyls,  prophets,  or  allegorical  figures  of  their  grosser  material 
effiscts  as  to  size,  solidity,  and  weight  by  thoroughly  subordina- 
ting them  to  the  purely  spiritual  elements  of  their  characters. 
But  his  work  in  general  shows  so  much  kinship,  especially  in 
force  and  depth  of  meaning  and  execution,  to  the  art  now  under 
examination,  as  to  mark  him  as  a  genuine  descendant  of  an 
Etruscan  ancestry  of  old  masters  whose  names  are  now  un- 
known. Their  spirit,  like  their  blood,  lives  again  in  him  in  its 
consummate  power.    Yet  it  is  not  until  the  full  intent  and  feel- 


ETRUSCAN  WOMEN. 


47 


ing  of  his  finest  symbolical  statues,  as,  for  example,  the  "  Night 
and  Day "  of  the  Medici  Chapel,  flow  into  the  mind,  that  an 
unwelcome  sense  of  their  physical  exaggeration  entirely  disap- 
pears. The  spiritual  superiority  of  the  Etruscan  supernal 
figures  is  manifested  by  their  suggesting  nothing  below  the  stand- 
ard of  a  lofty  conception,  which  bursts  on  the  senses  like  a  pro- 
phetic revelation.  We  share  the  trembling  awe  of  the  four 
human  shadows,  in  faded  fresco,  dimly  seen  issuing  from  the 
sepulchre,  looking  anxiously  and  inquiringly  at  the  mystical 
guardians  who  await  them  at  the  portals  of  Eternity.  Modern 
learning  calls  them  furies.  Nevertheless,  their  countenances  are 
benevolent  and  welcoming.  May  we  all  meet  no  more  unkindly 
faces  than  theirs  on  being  ushered  into  our  final  homes. 

The  less  elaborate  monument  of  the  lady  is  as  well  treated  in 
another  way.  A  fine  head  of  Medusa  is  the  only  ornament  on 
the  base.  Like  the  rest,  the  cornice  contains  an  obituary  inscrip- 
tion. A  handsome  matron  in  her  prime,  profusely  and  elegantly 
draped,  is  seated  in  a  curule  chair  on  its  top.  Her  right  arm 
is  bare  and  upraised ;  and  the  hand  with  unconscious  action  plays 
with  her  shoulder,  as  she  earnestly  listens,  bending  a  little  for- 
ward and  looking  downward.  One  fancies  her  to  be  a  judge, 
accustomed  to  be  revered  and  obeyed  ;  a  just  and  gracious  lady. 

Etruscan  women  were  trusted  housekeepers.  They  sat  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  and  kept  the  keys,  except  those  of  the 
wine-cellars ;  a  precaution  which,  with  as  much  probability,  tells 
against  their  husbands  as  them.  They  seem  to  have  had  greater 
social  freedom,  and  were  eligible  to  more  offices,  than  is  the 
modern  woman.  One  of  the  female  ancestors  of  Maecenas  was  a 
military  commander.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  our  lady 
of  the  Volunni  once  held  a  high  office ;  a  supposition  all  the 
more  plausible  from  the  authoritative,  masculine  pose  of  the 
right  hand  on  the  knee.  Without  detracting  from  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  the  image,  it  adds  decision  and  firmness  to  its  character. 
The  motive  and  treatment  of  this  little  monument,  as  a  whole, 
is  as  effectively  suggestive  as  Buonarotti's  "  Duke  Guliano,"  mis- 
called in  guidebooks  "  Lorenzo ;  "  but  the  plates  of  it  and  the  others 
published  by  Count  Connestabile  fail  to  do  them  justice. 

Miniature  genii  in  terra-cotta,  attached  to  the  lamps,  hang 
from  the  roof  of  the  tomb.  They  are  graceful  and  appropriate 
conceptions,  on  a  par  in  sentiment  with  Fra  Angelico's  guiding 
angels  in  his  "  Last  Judgment."  An  ecstatic  character  akin  to  his 
is  sometimes  seen  in  the  old  Etruscan  art.    It  cannot  be  con- 


48 


THE  CHIMERA. 


founded  with  the  Grecian  beautiful,  for  it  is  the  result  of  a  high- 
er insight  into  our  spiritual  being.  At  first  thought,  it  appears 
strange  that  so  fine  a  raystic  element  should  be  found  in  the  art 
of  a  people  the  chief  attributes  of  whose  supreme  good  or  God 
were  Strength,  Riches,  and  Wisdom,  not  Love,  not  even  admitting 
into  their  list  of  Divine  credentials  the  much-worshipped  Beauty 
of  their  relations  and  neighbors,  but  holding  to  the  same  material 
and  practical  view  of  life  that  the  English  race  now  do  under  the 
specious  term  "  common-sense."  Yet  through  this  grosser  appre- 
hension of  things  there  is  ever  to  be  detected  a  spiritual  clair- 
voyance which  lingers  in  their  blood,  as  originally  derived  from 
Oriental  sources.  Purged  of  the  worst  traits  of  Asiatic  supersti- 
tion and  mysticism,  it  still  speaks  intelligibly  to  us  after  its  long 
sleep. 

The  greatest  puzzle  of  Etruscan  art  is  that  extraordinary 
bronze  found  at  Arezzo,  now  in  the  Uffizi  gallery,  called,  in  an- 
tiquarian despair,  the  "  Chimera."  It  has  the  body  of  a  lion,  out 
of  the  back  of  which  grows  the  head  of  a  goat  poisoned  by  the 
bite  of  a  serpent,  which  forms  the  tail  of  this  composite  beast, 
whose  entire  body  is  beginning  to  show  the  effects  of  the  venom 
of  its  own  extremity.  If  it  admit  of  interpretation,  I  should  say 
that  the  lion  represented  the  strength  and  riches  of  Etrurian 
civilization,  the  goat  its  corrupting  luxury,  and  the  reptile  the 
fatal  sting  of  sin  that  finally  cast  it  down  into  the  mire,  never 
to  rise  again  among  the  nations. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


CLASSICAL  AND  CHRISTIAN  ART  COMPARED 

NTIQUITY  has  not  much  to  offer  of  aesthetic  value 
outside  of  Grecian  and  Etruscan  art.  As  we  have' 
seen,  Asiatic  and  Egyptian  art  were  too  intimately 
blended  with  their  originating  faiths  to  possess  an. 
interest  apart,  or  to  influence  modern  life  in  any 
appreciable  degree.  We  now  come  to  those  schools,  based  on. 
the  Christian  faith,  which  have  supplanted  all  others  as  a  living,, 
positive  agency  in  civilization. 

Should  any  one  ask  What  of  Roman  art?  I  reply,  The  an  of 
Nothing.  Understanding  Grecian  and  Etruscan,  he 
knows  this  also.  An  indigenous  art  never  grew  up  in  Rome,, 
nor  was  any  school  of  her  own  organic  initiation  ever  established: 
there.  Rome  conquered  art  as  she  did  nations,  and  transplanted! 
it  matured  into  her  own  ground,  subjecting  it  to  the  slavery  of  her 
own  desires,  as  she  likewise  bought  and  sold  free-born  artists  as 
common  slaves.  Art  became  abundant  within  her  walls,  but 
this  was  due  either  to  the  ostentation  of  the  rich  or  it  was  stolen 
from  weaker  peoples.  As  regards  my  purpose,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  remember  that  the  art  of  ancient  Rome  came  either  from 
Greece  or  Etruria,  or  was  the  interblended  product  of  their 
transplanted  schools,  pi-esenting  no  national  characteristics. 
Cicero  ordered  statues  from  Athens  for  his  villas  because  they 
could  be  had  there  cheaper  and  better  than  at  home.  Fine 
Greek  art  came  into  vogue  in  Rome  because  it  had  none  of  its 
own.  In  view  of  the  patronage  bestowed  on  artists  from  the 
first  Caesar  to  the  latest  Pope,  its  collections  and  museums,  its 
atmosphere  of  learning  and  amateurship,  and  the  stimulus  given 
by  church,  state,  and  individuals  to  every  form  of  art,  it  appears 
strange  that  no  distinctive  school  has  ever  come  of  it  all.  Every 
other  Italian  city,  one  can  almost  say  village,  has  had  its  local, 
characteristic,  permanent  style  of  art.  I  except,  of  course,  the 
magnificent  architecture  which  was  formed  by  and  for  the  impe- 


60 


NO  ROMAN  SCHOOL. 


rial  institutions  after  the  more  simple  and  sterner  Etruscan  forms 
had  gone  into  disuse  with  their  contemporary  republican  ideas. 
But  my  remark  is  strikingly  true  of  painting  and  sculpture. 
Whenever  an  emperor  or  pope  had  need  of  art,  he  lured  the 
artist  from  more  favored  sites.  Either  the  native  mind  is  in- 
capable of  anything  original  in  this  direction  or  else  Xhe  political 
and  religious  institutions  have  ever  been  unfavorable  to  its  devel- 
opment other  than  in  a  secondary  and  academical  form.  Intel- 
lectual and  political  freedom  are  requisite  for  noble  art  to  root 
itself  firmly  in  any  soil.  These  Rome  has  never  had  since  she 
knew  the  meaning  of  the  word.  If  we  look  far  back,  we  find 
that  the  works  and  artists  that  liave  given  celebrity  to  Rome  are 
of  foreign  origin.  So,  too,  in  mediaeval,  renaissant,  and  recent 
times.  Giotto,  Fra  Angelico,  Luca  Signorelli,  Perugino,  D. 
Ohirlandajo,  Michael  Angelo,  Cellini,  are  examples  familiar  to  all 
readers,  not  to  mention  a  long  list  of  sculptors.  Usually  Raphael 
is  said  to  have  founded  the  Roman  school  of  painting.  Rut  he 
no  more  founded  one  here  than  in  Perugia  or  Florence,  in  each 
of  which  he  left  paintings  that  influenced  the  styles  of  his  contem- 
poraries. When  he  came  to  Rome,  his  own  was  matured,  though 
subsequently  modified  by  the  study  of  classical  art  and  the  fashion- 
able infidelity  in  regard  to  all  religion.  Dying  prematurely,  he 
left  less  traces  of  himself,  so  far  as  concerns  pupils  competent 
to  further  develop  his  manner,  in  Rome  than  even  elsewhere. 
Its  siege  and  sack  by  the  Constable  Bourbon  shortly  after  drove 
away  the  few  incompetent  scholars  that  had  remained. 

Rome  is  a  cosmopolitan  capital,  whither  come  to  reside,  as  in 
a  great  inn,  artists  of  all  the  modern  schools,  with  some  special 
purpose  in  view,  never  amalgamating  with  the  resident  population 
or  inspiring  it  with  rivalry,  still  less  arousing  any  native  genius, 
but  simply  making  an  aesthetic  convenience  or  eligible  bazaar  of 
the  place.  As  it  is,  Rome  has  no  more  claim  to  any  original 
creative  influence  on  Christian  than  it  had  on  pagan  painting  and 
sculpture.  In  summing  up  the  latter  phase,  I  am  of  necessity 
limited  to  the  forms  they  assumed  inspired  by  the  sensuous 
idealism  of  Greece,  or  the  vigorous  realism  of  Etruria. 

Art  concerns  history  chiefly  on  the  side  of  its  morality.  Its 
immediate  office  as  regards  the  individual  is  to  confer  enjoyment. 
But  the  great  problem  to  be  solved,  in  both  its  particular  and 
general  aspects,  is  the  amount  of  good  or  evil  it  holds,  as  might 
be  said,  in  solution.  Questions  like  these  are  pertinent.  Where 
did  paganism  leave  art?    How  did  Christianity  take  it  up? 


WHAT  KILLED  PAGAN  ART. 


51 


What  was  its  effect  on  it  ?  Whicli  form  is  the  most  successful 
one  viewed  aesthetically,  and  which  the  more  cogent  in  a  moral 
or  spiritual  sense. 

Some  might  object  that  it  is  less  important  to  know  how  others 
lived  than  to  know  how  to  live  ourselves.  But  if  the  experi- 
ence of  those  who  have  passed  on  to  their  final  judgment  can 
profit  the  living,  by  all  means  let  us  utilize  it.  I  repeat  that 
the  art  of  a  nation  is  as  correct  a  chart  of  its  virtue  and  vice  as 
the  taste  of  an  individual  is  a  veritable  disclosure  of  his  mental 
constitution.  He  who  maintains  that  speech  and  art  were  given 
to  conceal  the  real  thought,  only  the  more  effectually  discloses 
himself  At  all  events,  the  causes  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  peoples 
are  clearly  set  forth  in  their  art.  Christianity  did  not  of  itself 
kill  the  antique  pagan  styles,  but  it  interred  them.  They  were 
virtually  dead  and  gone  to  corruption  before  the  new  religion 
was  established.  The  causes  of  this  dissolution  are  found  in 
their  constitutions.  When  it  is  asserted  that  the  distinctive  suc- 
cess of  Greek  art  was  owing  to  the  worship  of  beauty,  it  must 
also  be  stated  that  the  common  mind,  naturally  viewing  it  more 
in  its  material  than  ideal  aspect,  finally  perverted  its  pure  into 
sensual  shapes.  Etruscan  art,  following  the  Roman  bent,  became 
even  baser  in  forms  and  grosser  in  thoughts.  As  both  degener- 
ated in  intellectual  standard,  an  even  more  marked  decline  took 
place  in  their  execution,  so  that  at  last  each  appeared  as  rude  as 
when  its  archaic  efforts  first  began,  without  their  redeeming  sim- 
plicity and  sincerity.  Decaying  art  steps  from  one  low  platform 
to  a  lower  in  quick  succession.  We  should  be  thankful  that  the 
false  and  base  in  large  measure  perish  with  the  immediate  evil 
they  occasion.  Sin  by  nature  is  transitory  and  suicidal,  but 
every  noble  act  and  idea  is  immortal  by  virtue  of  birthright. 
We  owe  to  the  Greeks,  for  the  examples  they  have  given  of 
noble  life  born  of  their  art,  literature,  and  philosophy,  an  incalcu- 
lable debt,  which  can  be  appreciated  only  as  we  raise  ourselves 
to  the  same  intellectual  height.  It  is  not  necessary  or  possible 
to  recreate  their  life,  but  whatever  there  was  in  it  true  and  lovely 
in  principle,  we  may  search  out  and  apply  to  ourselves.  The 
crowning  virtue  of  their  art  came  less  of  the  popular  Crowning 
taste  for  Beauty  than  the  aspirations  of  the  men  of  ^Grecian  art. 
letters  for  Wisdom.    Athene  was  more  cherished  by  Pleasure  and 

pain  as  mo- 

them  than  Venus.    From  the  outset  of  their  national  tives. 
existence  she  was  their  protective  goddess,  associated  tian  hope ' 
in  their  minds  with  ideas  of  strength,  learning,  and  «"^/^«'' 


52 


WHAT  EXALTED  GRECIAN  ART. 


prudence  that  belong  only  to  omniscient  knowledge  and  power, 
typified  in  Jupiter,  her  father.  The  chief  desire  of  a  cultivated 
Athenian  was  to  make  every  feature  of  life  complete  and  beauti- 
ful. Hence  the  splendid  practical  heroisms  of  early  Grecian  his- 
tory ;  joyfully  obeying  to  the  death  the  needs  of  the  state,  as  did 
Leonidas  and  his  companions ;  fighting  monsters  and  rescuing 
innocence,  as  did  Theseus ;  or  Socrates  preferring  truth  with  poi- 
son to  life  denying  it.  This  manly,  large-sided,  far-seeing  courage 
and  faith,  joined  to  a  keen  pursuit  of  wisdom,  exalted  Grecian 
art,  and  even  sustained  its  external  beauty  for  a  time  after  the 
purer  inspiration  failed  within.  A  Greek  of  the  right  stamp  was 
not  satisfied  with  simply  doing  the  right  thing  ;  he  must  enjoy 
doing  it ;  and  to  be  certain  of  this,  he  had  to  keep  his  vital 
organs  in  that  healthful  condition  which  best  fitted  him  to  re- 
ceive pleasure  in  their  exercise,  according  to  his  understanding 
of  human  duty.     His  artistic  training  was  a  help  to  him. 

Virtually  pleasure  or  pain  in  right-doing  is  the  dividing  line 
between  the  Greek  and  Byzantine  religious  art-motives.  This 
radical  antagonism  of  principle  offers  a  clue  to  follow  out  the 
comparison  which  they  challenge.  With  both,  art  and  ethics 
are  as  inseparable  as  substance  and  shadow.  If  the  ideal  of  the 
Grecian  motive  was  Wisdom,  that  of  the  Christian  was  no  less 
Virtue.  The  pagan  trained  himself  to  know  ;  the  Christian,  to 
believe.  Consequently  the  mental  foundation  of  the  one  rested 
on  Instruction,  of  the  other  on  Revelation,  and  their  correlate 
vices  become  sophistry  and  superstition.  But  the  spiritual  stand- 
ard of  Christian  art  is  based  on  the  celestial  chorus  which  pro- 
claimed "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace  and 
good  vAW  toward  men."  By  these  words  we  test  its  quality. 
Its  ofiice  is  to  promote  faith  in  God,  and  harmony  between  Him 
and  man.  The  best  pagans  saw  God  under  the  aspects  of 
supreme  wisdom  and  power,  but  the  disciples  of  the  Nazarene 
were  taught  to  behold  Him  rather  as  supreme  Love  or  Sacrifice. 
Both  believed  that  the  ultimate  object  of  being  was  Happiness, 
but  with  a  vital  distinction.  *The  Greek  held  that  his  joy  was 
best  won  in  this  life,  and  the  Christian  in  the  next.  Each 
vigorously  pursued  the  pleasurable  or  painful  means  dictated  by 
their  faith  to  attain  their  respective  aims. 

Every  human  being  requires  for  spiritual  sustenance  the  hope 
of  immediate  or  prospective  compensation  or  reward.  Humanity 
errs,  however,  in  always  fixing  on  a  future  period  for  its  realiza- 
tion of  its  ideal  heaven  ;  not  seeing  that  its  coveted  happiness 


SPIRIT  OF  CHRISTIAN  ART. 


53 


depends  rather  on  present  conditions  of  mind,  and  in  the  main  is 
independent  of  time  and  most  material  things,  when  those  con- 
ditions are  in  harmony  with  spiritual  laws.  Material  objects 
then  become  gracious  accessories,  instead  of  being  the  imperious 
principals  of  life.  The  heaven  man  most  needs  is  a  capacity  of 
spontaneously  enjoying  the  gifts  of  Providence,  based  on  a  self- 
earned  well-being  and  mental  discipline,  with  a  childlike  grati- 
tude of  reception  and  purity  of  use.  This  is  a  felicity  within 
the  reach  of  all  who  heartily  accept  the  manifest  system  of 
divine  ethics,  irrespective  of  the  abstruse  subtleties  of  creeds. 
The  heathen  sage  sought  to  secure  supreme  equanimity  by 
triumphing  over  matter  now,  while  the  Christian  neophyte,  ac- 
cepting life  as  a  perpetual  offence,  trial,  and  grief,  postponed  the 
fruition  of  his  hope  until  his  spirit  was  released  from  the  body. 

It  must  be  allowed  that  the  hope  of  the  Christian  was  more 
comprehensive,  more  sustaining,  more  self-denying,  more  humane, 
and  more  clairvoyant  in  its  insight  into  the  spiritual  elements  of 
human  nature  than  the  pagan.  Demanding  more  of  man,  ex- 
acting loftier  motives,  it  also  conferred  more  transcendent  happi- 
ness, as  is  apparent  in  comparing  Jesus  with  Socrates,  or  the 
prophets  and  poets  of  Judasa  with  the  oracles  and  men  of  specu- 
lative science  of  Greece. 

We  may  now  trace  the  course  of  Christian  art  in  the  pursuit 
of  its  more  spiritual-minded  standard,  taking  it  up  at  that  period 
when,  seeing  its  predecessor  only  in  its  dissolute  decadence,  it 
began  by  viewing  all  past  art  with  horror  and  distrust,  but  com- 
pelled by  the  necessities  of  proselytism  to  put  it  to  use,  denuded 
it  of  its  old  truth  and  beauty,  and  reduced  it  to  a  service  opposed 
in  itself  to  every  principle  of  true  art,  namely.  Asceticism.  In 
another  way  this  was  quite  as  mischievous  a  falsehood  as  the 
heathen  adoration  of  the  beautiful  after  losing  faith  in  its  divine 
sense.  The  Christian  error  had  its  origin  in  the  reaction  of 
religious  faith  and  consequent  art-motives  to  the  opposite  mental 
extreme.  Instead  of  vigorous  heroic  action  as  the  object  and 
guerdon  of  life,  the  new  doctrines  presented  an  ideal  Rest  or  con- 
templative Idleness  as  the  supreme  reward  kept  in  store  for  ex- 
cessive self-sacrifice  by  a  mystical  godhead  whose  chiefest  func- 
tions were  vicarious  salvation  and  retributive  judgment.  The 
spiritual  consolations  which  the  gospel  of  Jesus  did  really  offer 
were  largely  obscured  by  a  diabolical  imagery  and  bodily  pen- 
ances invented  by  the  new  priesthood.  They  poisoned  the  re- 
ligious mind  with  the  notion  that  the  Deity  was  better  pleased 


54 


THE  ERROR  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


with  human  misery  than  its  joy,  and  did  not  scruple  even  to 
imply  that  a  portion  of  the  satisfaction  of  those  admitted  to  their 
heaven  would  be  derived  from  witnessing  the  physical  torture  im- 
posed on  the  excluded  in  the  name  of  Him  whose  dying  prayer 
for  His  enemies  was,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do."  Only  by  abnegation  of  reason  and  justice  could 
such  doctrines  be  accepted.  There  was  no  substantial  warrant 
for  them  in  the  language  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity.  By 
any  people  of  liberal  culture,  like  the  old  Greeks,  they  would 
have  been  rejected  as  degrading  to  their  conception  of  the  Creator, 
debasing  to  human  character,  and  destructive  of  the  idea  of  the 
parental  relation  by  which  Christ  revealed  God.  But  the  world 
had  again  become  either  extremely  rude  and  ignorant,  or  corrupt 
and  sophisticated,  so  that  the  usurpers  of  power  had  peoples  at 
their  disposition  easy  to  be  imposed  upon  by  imaginary  terrors 
or  overcome  by  brute  force.  The  strength  of  the  new  dogma 
lay  in  its  enforced  horror  of  death,  or  rather  its  dreadful  conse- 
quences. A  Christian  was  taught  to  believe  that  no  sacrifice  of 
his  natural  desires  was  too  great  to  make  in  order  to  avert  the 
wrath  in  store  for  an  unshriven  soul.  Nominally  he  could 
choose  between  heaven  and  hell ;  but  the  Church  held  the  keys 
of  both,  opening  the  one  or  condemning  to  the  other  according 
as  it  was  propitiated  by  implicit  obedience  and  gifts.  What 
wholesome  art,  science,  or  literature  could  flourish  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  such  intense  bigotry  and  selfish  interests !  The  worst 
paganism  never  gave  birth  to  a  more  deleterious  tenet  than  the 
unqualified  doctrine  of  hell-fire,  the  outgrowth  of  brutalizing 
asceticism  ;  demonstrating  that  "  man  is  man's  worst  devil."  To 
avoid  damnation,  men  became  fierce  and  sanguinary,  tormenting 
their  species  as  if  they  were  themselves  the  very  fiends  they 
feared.  In  order  to  ensure  mutual  salvation,  they  broke  every 
gospel  obligation  of  love  and  charity.  Finally,  their  minds  were 
so  obfuscated  by  senseless  discussions  on  points  of  theology  and 
moral  practice  that  they  voluntarily  inflicted  on  themselves  tor- 
tures and  privations  scarcely  less  painful  than  those  in  prospect 
after  death.  It  really  looks  as  if  the  frightful  paradox  had 
taken  possession  of  the  religious  mind,  that  to  become  a  Christian 
in  sect,  one  must  be  as  unchristian  in  act  as  it  was  possible  to 
be.  Incalculable  misery  to  nations  and  individuals  came  of  it. 
Intellectual  pride  had  done  much  to  shipwreck  the  national  hope 
of  Greece,  but  the  cowardice,  cruelty,  and  egoism  which  sprung 
from  the  monkish  notions  that  man  was  born  to  live  by  fear,  and 


ASCETICISM. 


55 


not  by  love,  were  most  calamitous  wherever  they  got  the  upper 
liand.  Self-sacrifice  was  gloried  in,  not  because  it  purified  and 
exalted  the  soul,  but  as  a  passport  to  future  reward.  The  surest 
test  of  a  virtuous  heart  was  thus  perverted  into  a  deadly  snare. 

If  a  speaking  example  be  needed  to  disclose  more  potentially 
the  effect  of  these  ideas  on  human  thought,  place  a  distorted 
skeleton  of  a  Byzantine  crucifix,  made  more  hideous  by  its  enam- 
elled trinketry  of  blue  and  gold,  beside  an  antique  Apollo,  as  a 
conception  of  a  god  ;  a  filthy,  limb-distorted  St.  Stylus  on  his 
column  or  a  foolish  hermit  of  the  Thebaid  in  company  with  the 
handsome  youths  of  Greece,  fresh  from  Olympian  games  ;  then 
compute  what  darkness  must  have  entered  the  heart  to  impel 
man  to  regard  with  devotional  awe  the  false  and  ugly  art  and 
false  and  ugly  lives  that  so  lyingly  boasted  a  Christian  parentage. 

Words  are  inadequate  to  depict  the  actual  debasement  of 
humanity  effected  by  asceticism.  To  appreciate  its  depth,  its 
practical  operation  must  be  seen.  Look  at  only  one  of  the  black 
shadows  it  casts  back  from  mediasval  times.  The  Sanctuary  of 
St.  Francis  is  built  high  up  a  mountain  ravine,  a  few  miles  from 
Assisi.  A  visit  convinced  me  that  it  is  quite  a  different  thing  to 
see  a  noted  site  of  asceticism  than  to  read  a  description  of  the 
movement  in  unirapassioned  print.  But  it  is  the  best  way  to 
get  at  the  intensity  of  its  influence  in  causing  men  to  rely  on 
physical  misery  and  mental  imbecility  as  the  accepted  tokens  of 
divine  favor. 

St.  Francis  himself  was  not  a  vagabond  hermit,  whose  sanc- 
tity consisted  of  dirt,  emaciation,  idleness,  and  senseless  bewail- 
ing ;  but  he  was  an  efficient  reformer,  doing  much  good  work  in 
his  day.  Whether  his  institutions  were  the  best  means  then 
possible  of  improving  the  lives  of  the  people  or  not,  it  does  not 
concern  my  topic  to  discuss.  They  flourished  to  a  surprising  ex- 
tent, and  even  now,  after  many  radical  changes,  are  conspicuous, 
although  deprived  of  their  former  rights.  Our  present  view  of 
him  is  not  that  of  the  sumptuous,  magnificent  saint,  laid  out  in 
more  than  regal  pomp  among  the  hierarchs  of  the  Church  in  the 
famous  convent  of  his  own  founding,  glorified  by  art  as  few  men 
have  ever  been  in  virtue  of  sanctity,  but  of  the  man  he  thought 
himself  to  be  ;  a  mean,  despicable  being,  begging  forgiveness  of 
God  for  every  pleasing  sensation,  and  even  instinct  of  clean- 
liness ;  doing  penance,  as  did  St.  Catherine,  for  combing  his  head  ; 
and  in  all  ways  striving  to  impress  on  his  soul  the  conviction 
that  his  body  was  a  dangerous  and  filthy-disposed  thing. 


56 


SHRINE  OF  ST.  FRANCIS. 


The  locality  was  fitly  chosen  to  battle  with  flesh  and  Satan. 
Around  and  above,  the  mountain  is  too  sterile  to  nourish  any 
green  herb  ;  a  stony  desolation  shutting  in  the  sanctuary 
except  in  front,  which  opens  on  the  upper  valley  of  the  Tiber 
until  the  view  is  cut  off  by  the  opposite  Appenines.  A  grove 
of  hardy  trees  has  grown  up  at  the  back  of  the  convent,  follow- 
ing for  a  little  distance  the  course  of  the  precipitous  ravine  which 
serves  as  a  water-course  after  severe  rains.  The  edifice  itself, 
built  over  the  original  cell  of  St.  Francis,  fits  well  the  land- 
scape. Judging  by  the  diminutive  size  of  the  dormitories  and 
indeed  all  the  offices,  elbow-room  was  a  forbidden  luxury.  Some 
were  mere  caves  cut  out  of  the  rock,  into  which  no  ray  of  sun 
could  enter.  Even  at  noon-day  my  guide  took  me  by  the  arm 
to  conduct  me.  The  rough  stone  floors  and  walls  were  black 
with  the  foulness  of  many  generations  of  unwashed  friars  ;  the 
rude  furniture  was  equally  grimy  ;  heavy  masses  of  soot  en- 
crusted the  ceiling  of  the  refectory-kitchen,  the  sole  place  where 
fire  was  ever  allowed  ;  while  throughout  the  atmosphere  was 
damp  and  unpleasant,  worsened  by  the  odors  of  foul  clothing 
and  fouler  bodies. 

Untidy  poverty  is  never  sweet,  even  in  a  rose-embowered  cot- 
tage ;  a  rebellious  sewer  is  expected  to  breed  righteous  discontent 
in  the  least  sensitive  nose  ;  rotten  garbage  rightly  chastises  with 
fever  those  who  permit  it ;  but  no  one  is  commanded  to  be 
enamoured  of  them  as  the  essence  of  divine  things.  Saints  and 
sinners  may  cordially  unite  to  abate  these  nuisances.  But  the 
old  asceticism,  regarding  filth  and  ignorance  as  capital  virtues, 
came  at  last  to  robe  godliness  in  them.  I  shivered  with  disgust 
at  the  touch  of  my  pilot,  for  it  seemed  to  betoken  impending 
disease,  which  needs  be  exorcised  at  once  by  fresh  air  and  water. 
For  society  each  friar  had  a  cat.  One  of  the  brethren  told  me 
he  had  been  sent  here  seven  years  before,  but  felt  it  was  no  place 
for  him,  as  the  long,  humid  winters  gave  him  the  rheumatism. 
But  "  what  would  you  have,  sir  ?  "  he  ejaculated  with  a  sigh  of 
resignation,  as  if  there  were  no  other  possibility  of  dutiful  life. 
But  a  fatter  and  more  voluble  brother  with  an  ambiguous  leer, 
such  as  a  dissolute  satyr  might  have  put  on  when  paganism  was 
going  to  the  dogs,  did  the  chief  honors. 

He  took  me  first  to  a  miraculous  well  of  never-failing  water 
which  flowed  out  of  the  rock  at  the  intercession  of  St.  Francis, 
and  had  such  a  capacity  for  healing  all  manner  of  diseases  that 
in  some  years,  until  the  wholesale  vagabondizing  was  forbidden 


SHRINE  OF  ST  FRANCIS. 


57 


by  the  government  of  Italy,  fifteen  thousand  pilgrims  visited  it 
from  Naples  alone,  with  gifts  to  the  convent.  It  was  also  a  pre- 
ventive against  sickness,  and  altogether  too  sacred  for  the  use  of 
the  friars,  they  being  limited  to  a  precarious  supply  from  another 
source,  which,  however,  was  sufficient  for  their  few  wants  of  the 
article.  Yet  St.  Francis,  whatever  might  have  been  his  bodily 
habit,  had  a  profound  poetical  esteem  for  water.  In  his  popular 
"  Canticle  of  the  Sun,"  composed  for  the  use  of  the  pilgrims,  he 
chants  its  virtues  as  follows  :  "  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister 
water,  who  is  very  serviceable  unto  us,  and  humble,  and  precious, 
and  cleanP  No  hydropathist  could  praise  it  in  fewer  and  more 
beautiful  words.  Those  who  see  religious  institutions  only  in 
their  decadence,  miss  much,  both  of  the  aroma  of  their  pristine 
piety  and  the  reasons  for  those  severe  rules  which  were  the  basis 
of  their  organic  usefulness.  With  a  spirit  of  inconsistency  in 
relation  to  this  element  that  seems  a  marvel  in  view  of  the  above 
praise,  the  saint  predicted  great  disasters  in  store  for  the  Church 
of  Rome  whenever  the  usually  dry  water-course  beneath  the 
convent  flowed  abundantly.  Pointing  to  a  deep  hole  in  the 
rock  close  by,  covered  by  an  iron  shutter,  the  leering  friar  said 
that  was  made  by  the  Devil,  who  plunged  headlong  down  it  at 
the  command  of  the  saint,  on  being  foiled  in  tempting  him  with 
carnal  persuasions,  and  he  added,  "  The  Devil  has  never  since 
been  back,"  which  I  doubted. 

There  was  a  mysterious  twinkle  in  the  eye  of  ray  ascetic 
friend,  but  I  could  not  make  out  whether  it  was  a  sign  of  ecstatic 
faith  or  a  feeler  to  probe  my  opinion  of  his  stories.  He  exhibited 
a  rude  crucifix  kept  under  glass  with  other  relics  in  the  oratory, 
which  had  been  worn  into  polished  shapelessness  by  devout 
kisses.  A  cardinal  who  had  been  cured  by  it  of  a  dangerous 
.complaint,  insisted,  so  he  said,  on  taking  it  to  Rome,  where  he 
hung  it  up  at  his  bedside.  On  awakening  the  next  morning,  it 
was  missing,  and  at  the  same  instant  was  seen  back  in  its  old 
post,  —  concluding  the  tale  with  "  As  you  see,"  and  several  rapid 
winks.  Another  long-armed  crucifix  in  the  chapel  had  boxed 
the  ears  of  a  countess  who  was  praying  to  it  in  an  improper 
frame  of  mind  ;  and  to  keep  it  company,  there  was  a  loquacious 
Madonna,  extremely  ugly  and  archaic. 

I  asked  if  women  by  chance  ever  got  inside  their  fold.  Such 
an  event  had  occurred  on  one  occasion,  to  their  infinite  horror, 
but  the  sex  was  not  discovered  until  the  supposed  friar  was 
dying.    It  was  all  owing  to  her  intense  desire  to  live  in  such 


68 


LAIRS  OF  THE  HERMITS. 


holy  company.  Women  can  visit  the  cell  and  chapel  of  St. 
Francis,  but  must  not  enter  the  convent  itself.  Both  cell  and 
chapel  are  mere  dens  in  the  rock,  the  former  scarcely  long 
enough  for  him  to  have  lain  down  at  full  length  on  the  bare 
stone  floor  which  was  his  only  bed,  with  a  billet  of  wood  for  a 
pillow.  This  sybarite  couch,  on  which  he  used  to  lie  naked  at 
all  seasons,  is  needlessly  protected  from  profane  touch  by  an  iron 
grating. 

On  such  evidence,  who  can  doubt  the  sincere  austerity  of  the 
well-intentioned  saint,  or  dispute  the  tendency  of  asceticism  to 
degrade  the  minds  and  dishonor  the  bodies  of  its  disciples  ?  Bad 
as  was  the  example  of  St.  Francis,  it  supplanted  a  worse  one, 
as  I  was  shown,  on  being  led  to  the  lairs  of  the  hermits  who 
preceded  him  here.  These  were  literally  enlarged  snake-holes 
in  the  rocks.  Some  were  in  positions  inaccessible,  except  by 
those  whose  lives  in  the  wilderness  had  developed  in  them  some 
of  the  forces  as  well  as  habits  of  beasts.  One  consisted  of 
a  narrow  inclined  tunnel  through  which  rain,  wind,  and  snow 
had  free  passage.  A  portion  of  the  side-soil  had  been  worn 
smooth  by  the  crouching  body  of  the  occupant,  as  it  rested 
against  it  when  the  water  was  too  deep  for  him  to  lie  at  full 
length  on  the  floor.  This  covert  was  about  ten  feet  long  by  two 
high  and  three  broad,  rough  and  sharp  throughout,  except  in 
those  parts  made  flat  by  running  water  or  the  calloused  skin  of 
the  hermit.  Lest  anything  be  wanting  to  complete  human 
wretchedness,  solitude  and  silence,  except  of  the  stated  prayers, 
was  enjoined  on  this  holy  ground.  And  this  kind  of  life  was, 
and  is  now  by  many,  believed  to  be  the  climax  of  Christian 
progress. 

Need  we  wonder  at  the  erotic  or  hellish  visions  of  St.  An- 
thony, the  nude  flagellations  of  St .  Jerome,  or  the  other  vaga- 
ries of  diseased  brains  which  were  once  so  prolific  an  inspiration 
to  Christian  art,  keeping  its  types  as  coarse  and  low  as  the  hab- 
its of  the  misguided  converts  themselves !  In  principle,  ascet- 
icism was  meant  to  be  a  reaction  against  pagan  sensuality. 
Christianity  was  right  in  idea,  but  wrong  in  carrying  it  to  such 
an  extreme  in  practice.  The  aim  of  the  pagan  artist  had  been 
an  easier  one,  and  his  task  more  pleasing.  The  ascetic  Christian 
artist,  in  trying  to  portray  the  supremacy  of  spirit  over  the  flesh 
had  a  holier  intent  and  a  more  difficult  treatment  before  him. 
Instead  of  depicting  sensuous  beauty,  he  was  compelled  to  con- 
demn it,  on  the  principle  that  the  body,  instead  of  being  the  best 


PHASES  OF  CHRISTIAN  ART. 


59 


friend  of  life,  was  its  most  subtle  foe.  By  studiously  deprecia- 
ting its  functions,  that  harmony  which  by  right  exists  between 
pure  feeling  and  beautiful  form,  and  which  the  classical  artist 
obtained  in  one  shape,  was  destroyed.  Ignorance  superadded 
to  fanaticism  often  turned  art  into  burlesque  and  disgust.  For 
a  time  even  the  person  of  the  Saviour  was  delineated  in  the 
coarsest  and  most  emaciated  manner,  on  the  ground  that  his  ca- 
reer was  one  of  humiliation,  and  his  death  a  degradation.  Lit- 
erally his  effigy  must  be  shown  to  believers  as  a  poverty-stricken 
man  of  sorrows ;  as  ignoble  in  looks  as  in  condition  and  fortune 
while  living.  It  was  not  until  classical  forms  and  traditions 
again  began  to  influence  art  that  it  learned  how  to  give  more 
congenial  forms  to  spiritual  aspirations.  Unfortunately,  before 
these  were  perfected,  art  was  seduced  into  a  preference  for  merely 
mechanical  excellence  devoid  of  any  connection  with  the  purer 
and  more  profound  motives  that  first  inspired  its  technical  regen- 
eration. The  Greek  perfected  his  work  in  accordance  with  the 
motives  which  inspired  it,  holding  fast  to  the  high  standard  he 
had  created  for  a  prief  period.  But  the  mediaeval  artist  never 
completely  reached  his  aim.  Before  a  perfection  of  treatment 
corresponding  to  the  Grecian  had  been  fully  attained,  he  passed 
into  a  stage  that  marked  a  decided  decline,  both  of  motive  and 
execution.  Christian  art,  as  a  whole,  has  been  as  fluctuating 
and  disappointing  as  the  experience  of  Christianity  itself  We 
have  yet  to  await  their  complete  expression.  Consequently 
no  entirely  equitable  comparison  can  be  drawn  between  the  per- 
fected classical  art  and  the  immatured  results  of  its  rival. 

Christian  art  has  passed  through  three  phases,  and  Phases  of 
is  now  in  its  fourth.    First,  that  of  the  Catacombs, 
This  was  its  infancy,  when,  animated  by  love  and  ^^fJJo-fJS- 
charity,  the  Christian  mind  was  more  desirous  of  religious ' 

n  r      •  •         ,  ^  renaissance: 

wumnig  than  ot  torcmg  paganism  to  accept  its  ideas,  modem. 
Asceticism  was  still  unborn.  The  sepulchral  frescoes  partake 
of  the  more  cheerful  pagan  view  of  death,  which  excluded  im- 
ages of  sadness  and  horror.  They  even  borrow  many  of  the 
heathen  symbols.  Spiritual  in  conception  and  allegorical  in 
feature,  these  are  of  childlike  simplicity  of  execution,  and  often 
so  rude  in  design  that  except  as  an  alphabetical  beginning,  they 
can  scarcely  be  classified  as  art  proper. 

The  second  phase  was  the  Theological,  the  Church  having 
supreme  sway  over  it,  with  what  consequences  asceticism  shows 
in  the  pictorial  and  sculptured  examples  of  mingled  ignorance 


60 


THE  RELIGIOUS  PHASE. 


and  superstition  that  still  survive.  It  lasted  from  the  reign  of 
the  first  Constantine  to  the  thirteenth  century. 

At  this  period  the  Religious  phase  began.  In  the  main,  art 
was  devoted  to  the  Church,  but  partially  free  in  its  expression, 
stimulated  by  the  intellectual  activity  that  characterized  this 
epoch,  which  in  Italy  terminated  with  the  sixteenth  century. 
Mind  began  to  assert  its  long  dormant  rights  in  all  departments 
of  learning,  leavening  the  new  schools  of  art  with  fresh  princi- 
ples of  growth.  Two  grand  divisions  came  of  this  freedom. 
One  took  nature  as  its  guide,  profiting  by  the  sparse  examples 
of  good  antique  art  then  known,  but  confining  its  choice  of  sub- 
jects almost  exclusively  to  religious  motives.  The  other  was 
later  in  coming  into  vogue.  It  disinterred  the  debased  models 
of  antiquity  to  be  its  teacliers,  copying  their  forms  without  be- 
lieving in  their  original  vivifying  spirit,  and  devoted  itself  zeal- 
ously to  the  service  of  worldliness.  In  principle  the  new  styles 
were  an  intellectual  protest  against  the  bigotry  and  dogmatism 
of  strictly  sacred  art.  They  were  particularly  an  incentive  to 
polite  learning  and  a  broader  mental  culture  than  obtained  under 
the  narrowing  influences  of  the  dominant  ecclesiasticisms.  Sin- 
gularly, too,  they  borrowed  the  Christian  phrase  "  new  birth," 
to  characterize  the  enterprise  of  making  again  popular  the  aes- 
thetic forms  and  associations  of  defunct  paganism.  We  now 
interpret  "  Renaissance  "  in  a  broader  view,  as  comprising  the 
general  advance  of  knowledge  that  began  with  the  earliest 
movement  of  the  Religious  phase  of  art.  Practically  the  later 
action  was  a  fusion  of  pagan  philosophy  with  modern  skepticism 
at  the  period  when  the  heads  of  the  Church,  licentious  in  habits 
and  unbelievers  at  heart,  turned  both  literature  and  art  into  in- 
struments of  self-glory  and  sensual  gratifications. 

If  the  investigation  of  heathen  ideas  had  been  an  honest  one, 
much  moral  as  well  as  intellectual  benefit  might  have  come  of 
it.  We  have  since  discovered  how  much  there  was  of  beauty 
and  wisdom  in  the  departed  faiths.  But  at  that  time  the  god 
Pan  gave  no  sign  of  life.  The  revival  of  classical  learning  being 
mixed  up  with  so  much  hypocrisy  of  sanctity  and  the  lying  doc- 
trine of  God's  elected  rulers,  instead  of  bringing  clearly  to  light 
the  virtues  of  paganism,  put  foremost  its  corrupting  influences. 
Consequently,  as  the  feeling  which  prompted  it  was  largely  false 
and  vainglorious,  so  the  results  were  similar. 

A  salutary  sympathy  with  the  belief  of  another,  salutary  be- 
cause founded  on  the  common  instincts  of  humanity,  in  prying 


THE  LAOKOON. 


61 


into  the  secrets  of  futurity  to  find  therein  repose  in  the  present, 
comes  as  often  from  the  untutored  heart  as  the  understanding 
enlarged  by  cultivation.  Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  fact  which 
I  can  vouch  for.  The  subject  was  a  New  England  girl,  not 
seven  years  old,  born  of  Puritan  parents,  and  trained  in  the 
strict  manner  of  their  sect.  By  chance  she  had  found  a  book 
which  told  how  much  loved  and  honored  the  old  gods  of  Greece 
once  had  been,  but  that  now  their  images  were  looked  upon  as 
idols,  and  no  one  worshipped  them.  Pitying  their  disconsolate 
condition,  she  went  into  the  woods  near  by,  built  a  tiny  altar  of 
stones,  decorated  it  with  flowers  and  shells,  laid  on  it  her  pet 
toys,  and  thus  apostrophized  the  deposed  chief  of  Olympus  : 
"  Poor  old  forgotten  Jupiter,  I  love  you  ;  if  nobody  else  will 
worship  you,  I  will,  dear  old  god,  and  you  shall  have  my  doll, 
and  I  will  bring  you  flowers  every  day."  Jove  never  received 
sincerer  and  sweeter  homage  from  any  Grecian  maiden. 

The  fourth  phase  of  Christian  art  was  inaugurated  with  the 
Reformation.  What  that  is,  will  appear  when  I  treat  of  the 
schools  nearer  our  own  time.  Meanwhile  it  will  be  apposite,  to 
give  a  few  illustrations  of  the  essential  differences,  in  character 
and  execution,  between  classical  and  Christian  art,  in  its  first 
three  phases.  The  comparison  is  unequal,  inasmuch  as  the 
former  is  represented  by  detached  or  mutilated  works,  while  the 
latter  has  the  decided  advantage  of  having  much  of  its  painting 
and  sculpture  still  in  the  shrines  for  which  they  were  designed, 
and  the  feeling  in  which  they  were  conceived,  yet  active  even 
in  Protestant  minds. 

In  which,  as  a  unity,  are  the  true  spirit  and  purpose  of  art 
best  exemplified  ? 

Rightly  to  answer  this,  we  must  first  get  at  the   „  .  . 

1     •         •  r    •  •     •         r.  1     ,   •         Spirit  and 

relative  mteriority  or  superiority  of  the  underlying  purpose  of 
idea.  Next,  its  degree  of  identification  with  the  ob-  ^chrhtia!fart 
ject  itself.  As  this  is  exact  and  harmonious,  and  the  '^^^p^^^'^ 
motive  pure  and  elevated,  to  that  extent  the  art  is  perfected. 
Infants  are  called  artless,  because  body  and  mind,  in  action  cor- 
respond so  naturally  and  spontaneously.  In  the  same  sense,  art 
becomes  artless,  whenever  the  external  means  expresses  equally 
as  well  its  inward  thought. 

The  group  of  the  Laokoon,  is  one  of  those  rare  examples  of 
Greek  sculpture  which  represents  intense  physical  and  mental 
suffering.  Observe  with  what  nice  discrimination  the  sculptor 
makes  the  inoriil  of  their  death  more  noticeable  than  its  bodily 


62 


DYING  GLADIATOR. 


anguish  !  We  foresee  what  must  come  of  their  terrible  position, 
but  are  spared  any  visible  rack  of  flesh.  Even  a  gleam  of  hope 
arises  in  the  spectator's  mind,  as  he  sympathizes  in  the  Cither's 
unspoken  appeal  to  Heaven  for  his  sons,  suffering  for  his  sin. 
There  are  no  vehement,  muscular  writhings  to  disturb  the  pity 
felt  for  his  fate,  or  admiration  of  his  courageous  struggle  to 
escape.  If  Max  Miiller  be  correct  in  saying  that  the  original 
meaning  or  root  of  the  name  of  this  heroic-pathetic  sculpture  is 
symbolical  of  "  sin  "  or  the  throttler,  then  it  teaches  a  great  moral 
truth,  besides  being  so  elevated  in  treatment.  Although  violent 
action  is  foreshadowed,  the  time  is  so  skilfully  chosen  as  to  sug- 
gest a  moment's  pause  in  the  awful  doom,  relieving  the  other- 
wise over-exercised  emotions. 

The  "  Dying  Gladiator  "  of  Byron,  and  that  of  the  Capitol  at 
Rome,  are  two  artistic  creations,  the  former  being  purely  ideal 
and  the  latter  thoroughly  realistic  art.  This  is  simply  a  naked 
man,  dying  slowly  from  the  effects  of  a  stab  in  his  side.  The 
merit  does  not  consist  in  the  poet's  vision,  in  his  features  of  a 
home  on  the  Danube  and  children  at  play,  but  in  its  accurate 
anatomy,  skilful  pose,  and  thorough  subjection  of  every  detail, 
each  consummately  done,  to  the  main  object  of  truthfully  ex- 
pressing this  form  of  death,  in  its  purely  physical  aspect  of  limbs 
and  features.  Any  spiritual  or  poetical  significance -comes  from 
the  spectators  mind,  not  the  work  itself.  That  so  much  spec- 
ulation has  arisen,  is  due  to  the  artist's  having  kept  his  mo- 
tive, a  very  common  one  in  all  art,  so  thoroughly  in  subjection 
to  the  aesthetic  laws,  that  regulated  Grecian  treatment  of  pain. 
Without  aiming  to  touch  the  imagination  by  manifest  means  of 
mental  characterization,  the  heathen  sculptor  succeeds  in  so  do- 
ing to  a  far  greater  extent  than  does  the  Christian  artist,  in  his 
ordinary  representations  of  dying  martyrs,  whose  forms  of  death 
he  expressly  desires  to  impress  on  the  spectator's  mind,  as  con- 
nected with  the  loftiest  spiritual  aspirations.  And  this  differ- 
ence is  the  result  of  managing  details,  with  a  different  motive 
and  end  in  view.  The  Greek  subordinates  even  horror,  suf- 
fering, and  agony  to  his  theory  of  the  assthetically  pleasurable, 
and  scientifically  perfect  in  art,  while  the  Christian,  keeping  up- 
permost in  mind  his  ascetic  doctrines,  made  poverty,  emaciation, 
torture,  or  whatever  was  repugnant  to  the  natural  man,  most 
apparent,  as  the  appointed  means  of  final  beatitude.  The  one 
wished  to  dignify,  the  other  to  debase  the  ,body.  Razzi's  St. 
Sebastian  in  the  Uffizi,  in  form  and  expression,  is  one  of  the 


CHRISTIAN  ART. 


63 


most  beautiful  specimens  of  Cliristian  painting,  but  it  would  be 
as  much  improved  even  in  view  of  its  ecstatic  motive,  had  the 
painter  omitted  the  arrows  sticking  in  the  saint's  body,  as  the 
Gladiator  would  be  deteriorated,  had  its  sculptor  left  a  sword 
buried  in  the  now  scarcely  discernible  wound,  and  the  legs  con- 
vulsed with  pain.  One  system  appeals  to  the  finest  intellectual 
faculties ;  the  other  to  the  coarsest  material  sensations.  St. 
Lawrence  broiling  on  his  gridiron,  St.  Agnes  with  her  bosoms 
flayed,  or  any  martyrs  in  the  moment  of  their  extremest  agony, 
are  certainly  not  suitable  motives  for  art ;  nor  do  I  believe  that 
their  pictorial  representations  help  mankind  towards  heaven,  any 
more  than  do  public  executions,  torture,  or  slaughter  of  any  sort. 
Pagan  art  in  this  respect,  in  lesser  matters,  was  more  salutary 
than  Christian.  But  when  we  come  to  the  grossest  materialism 
of  the  last,  pagan  example  is  still  brighter.  The  effect  of  the 
materialistic  view  of  spiritual  dogmas  was  every  whit  as  disas- 
trous to  the  human  mind  as  the  lowest  sensualism  of  heathen- 
dom. That  terrible  imagery  of  fiery  torments,  which  harrows 
the  imagination  of  docile  faith,  grew  out  of  it,  culminating  in  the 
Christian  hell,  with  its  countless  population  of  indescribable 
fiends  of  insatiable  appetites,  whose  sole  occupation  was  to  agon- 
ize through  eternity  whomsoever  the  Church  refused  to  absolve  ; 
demon  and  sinner  being  under  the  domination  of  a  supreme 
Devil,  who  was  the  rival  of  God.  The  crudest  pagan  never 
conceived  so  prolific  a  world  of  horrors  for  the  vilest  wretch,  as 
did  the  Christian  preacher,  in  his  professed  love  of  his  neighbor's 
soul.  When  I  record  this  atrocious  theological  invention  in 
plain  words,  just  as  I  have  heard  it  preached  from  Protestant 
pulpits,  and  seen  it  depicted  by  Catholic  artists,  I  can  scarcely 
credit  them  myself.  But  alas,  I  have  also  too  often  witnessed  its 
baleful  effects,  in  producing  gloom  and  insanity  in  weak  natures, 
cruelty  and  fanaticism  in  the  unquestioning,  and  indifference  or 
infidelity  in  the  strong,  not  to  denounce  any  art  which  devotes 
itself  to  diabolism. 

Nevertheless  I  would  not  prohibit  the  representation  of  the 
effects  of  sin,  or  of  symbolizing  the  evils  of  vile  passions,  or  even 
of  inventing  an  imagery  to  prefigure  the  conditions  of  wretched 
souls,  whose  shapes  may  be  conjectured  to  correspond  to  their 
varied  guilt,  and  likewise  to  depict  the  forms  of  those  beings  in 
another  state  with  whose  criminal  desires  their  own  are  in  affinity, 
calling  them  Beelzebub  or  other  appropriate  name.  Such  art  is 
legitimate,  and  can  be  made  morally  efficacious,  if  it  does  not 


64 


THE  HELL  OF  POWERS. 


relapse  into  abnormal  extremes,  which,  materializing  overmuch 
the  current  notions  of  either  heaven  or  hell,  defeat  its  spiritual 
intent,  and  provoke  reaction  against  faith  itself. 

The  sculptor  Hiram  Powers,  about  thirty  years  ago  invented 
and  exhibited  in  America  a  panoramic  hell  of  the  Calvinistic 
pattern,  which  was  much  lauded  for  its  artistic  ingenuity  and 
salutary  religious  influences.  But  it  was  worse  than  the  painted 
debaucheries  of  torment  of  mediasval  conceptions ;  for  it  not  only 
put  into  lively  action  sulphuric  flames  tended  by  horned  and 
tailed  devils  with  costumes  and  pitchforks  after  orthodox  pat- 
terns, aided  by  loathsome  serpents  and  other  terrifying  monsters, 
but  also  presented  the  livid  faces  and  blood-streaming  shapes  of 
the  lost,  including  children,  whose  cries  appalled  the  visitors, 
while  their  ears  were  stunned  by  the  clanking  of  chains,  and 
whatever  dire  noises  that  could  contribute  to  the  frightfulness  of 
the  scene.  This  is  a  humiliating  fact  to  record  for  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  nineteenth  century  of  so-called  Christian  life,  but  a 
useful  one  in  showing  how  art  can  be  perverted  when  given  into 
the  charge  of  fanaticism. 

To  intellectual  persons,  Dante's  "  Inferno  "  has  an  inner  sense  of 
lofty,  spiritual  meaning,  but  to  the  common  mind  it  embodies  the 
popular,  material  notions  of  future  retribution.  In  this  he  is  the 
gi-eat  prototype  of  mediaeval  sacred  art,  just  as  Milton's  wars  in 
heaven,  though  derived  from  Catholic  sources,  have  become  the 
traditionary  lore  of  Protestantism,  and  as  the  Iliad  of  Homer 
was  the  bible  of  classical  art.  Protestant  sects  having  ever 
held  the  art  of  the  Roman  Church  in  the  same  aversion  that  that 
held  the  pagan,  they  can  show  but  little  themselves  of  a  religious 
character.  With  them  the  painted  word  made  flesh  was  an 
abomination ;  the  verbal  Word  everything.  Hence,  although 
the  difference  is  one  of  form  only  and  not  of  idea,  in  treat- 
ing religious  art,  I  must  confine  my  examples  to  the  sect  that 
used  it  in  plastic  and  pictorial  shapes. 

Niccola  Pisano,  Orgagna,  Fra  Angelico,  Luca  Signorelli,  and 
Michael  Angelo,  taught  by  Rome,  were  the  chief  masters  who 
put  into  form  and  color  the  poem  of  Dante,  in  so  sincere  and  ter- 
rible a  manner  that  even  now  few  can  view  their  works  without 
dismay.  What  must  have  been  their  effect  on  those  who  ac- 
cepted the  images  of  hell  as  matter  of  fact !  Michael  Angelo 
mingled,  in  his  "  Last  Judgment,"  some  of  the  classical  ideas  con- 
cerning Hades.  But  how  feeble  they  seem  beside  the  intenser 
horrors  of  the  Christian  belief.    W^hat  a  contrast,  too,  between  the 


THE  THESEUS  OF  PHIDIAS. 


65 


chaotic  movement  and  exaggerated  limbs,  and  denunciatory  pas- 
sion of  his  prodigious  figures,  and  the  majestic  repose  and  purity 
of  form  of  those  of  Phidias !  Fettered  by  his  ignoble  belief  in 
the  popular  demonism,  the  great  Italian  becomes  morbidly  ear- 
nest in  his  endeavor  to  foreshadow  the  material  aspects  of  the 
most  fearful  event  that  could  haunt  the  imaginations  of  believers, 
and  tighten  the  hold  of  the  Church  on  their  consciences. 

Although  the  range  of  Greek  art  was  limited  in  comparison 
with  that  of  its  successor,  it  was  far  more  mindful  of  aesthetic 
law  in  its  choice  and  treatment  even  of  sacred  topics.  The 
sculptures  of  the  Parthenon,  its  best  extant  examples,  mutilated 
though  they  be,  establish  this  fact.  Theseus  is  a  fellow-being 
far  on  his  way  to  divinity  ;  godlike  in  heroic  intent,  beautiful 
strength,  and  latent  power.  It  is  by  such  chiselled  sermons  that 
Phidias  makes  known  the  immortality  of  the  human  kind. 
They  are  a  sort  of  final  revelation  of  man's  idealisms  or  ulti- 
mate capacity  of  beauty  of  form  and  mind  ;  the  only  sort  of 
beatified  saint  recognized  in  Grecian  mythology,  of  which  infe- 
rior examples  are  seen  in  the  "  Venus  de  Milo,"  Neapolitan 
"  Flora,"  "  Apollo  Bel videre,"  and  their  like,  which  last  unfor- 
tunately has  reached  our  times  only  in  a  weak  Roman  copy.. 
Ancient  statuary  of  the  highest  order  would  gain  in  effect  if  left 
as  found  ;  for  modern  restoration  of  limbs  or  parts  of  members, 
as  is  specially  noticeable  in  the  *'  Venus"  of  the  Tribune,  the 
"  Laokoon,"  and  the  false  head  of  the  Flora  "  invariably  mars 
the  unity  of  spirit  and  form  of  the  original  work. 

Examples  of  those  physical  and  intellectual  qualities  that 
most  dignify  men  and  women,  and  best  connect  them  with  the 
mythological  ideas  of  divinity,  are  still  familiar  to  the  world  in 
the  marble  guise  of  a  Juno,  Venus,  Mars,  Hercules,  Bacchus, 
Jupiter,  and  the  other  gods  of  Olympus.  They  are  supernal  be- 
ings, but  on  a  different  basis  from  the  artistic  creatioiis  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  were  more  abstract  and  spiritual  in  functions, 
more  removed  from  human  organizations,  having  their  origin, 
existence,  and  duties  wholly  in  the  celestial  spheres  ;  the  only 
exception  in  way  of  assuming  the  ordinary  form  of  man  being 
in  the  case  of  the  Son  of  God,  for  a  specific  purpose.  The  clas- 
sical gods  or  demons  are  always  clothed  in  human  form,  and  are 
virtuous  or  vicious  according  to  the  unregenerated  human  stand- 
ard of  morals.  In  fine,  they  were  individuals  to  the  common 
mind,  whatever  might  be  the  true  meaning  of  the  original  myth 
or  conception  from  which  their  personality  sprung.  Doubtless 
5 


66 


IDEAL  OF  ART—  COMPARATIVE. 


much  of  this  familiar  understanding  of  them  was  due  to  the 
artistic  genius  which  so  skilfully  and  harmoniously  interblended 
the  ideal  motive  with  the  ideal  form,  and,  by  means  of  sensuous 
beauty,  made  it  popular  with  the  masses.  The  first  conceptions 
of  divinity  of  the  Romans,  borrowed  from  the  Etruscans,  were 
abstractly  spiritual,  as  we  notice  in  their  temples  dedicated  to 
Modesty,  Honor,  and  the  virtues  in  general,  with  the  spirits  they 
believed  to  preside  over  the  actions  of  men.  But  Grecian  an- 
thropomorphism finally  overcame  the  abstract  motives  of  Rome. 
Nor  can  we  wonder  at  the  triumph  of  the  sensuous  principle,  as 
men  in  general  conceive  of  things,  when  we  look  upon  the  finest 
specimens  that  came  of  it  in  art.  How  vividly  the  "  Antinoiis  " 
of  the  Capitol,  in  the  "  white  silence "  of  his  fine  form,  says, 
"  Admire  me,  for  I  am  truly  handsome,  and  beloved  of  gods  and 
men ; "  not  in  the  vulgar  self-sufiiciency  which  comes  of  silly 
■vanity,  but  with  modest  consciousness  of  his  superior  comeliness 
as  a  divine  gift.  We  can  enjoy  the  subtle  beauty  of  antique 
art,  independent  of  its  religious  association,  which  no  longer 
concerns  the  world.  But  so  perfect  is  some  of  pagan  symbolism 
that  the  Christian  fancy  delights  to  perpetuate  it.  Cupid  and 
Psyche  still  live  in  their  original  garb  and  meaning.  The  list 
might  be  extended  to  include  other  forms  which  have  become  so 
integral  a  part  of  our  own  poetry  of  life  that  we  rarely  confess 
our  indebtedness  to  antiquity  for  them.  But  we  cannot  appropriate 
to  ourselves  Grecian  thoroughness  of  art.  The  "  Torso  de  Belvi- 
dere  "  reveals  a  skill  that  seems  little  short  of  the  miraculous,  so 
truthful  is  its  anatomy,  so  vital  its  aspect,  and  so  majestic  its 
treatment.  Although  a  much  broken  fragment,  modern  art  de- 
spairs of  its  restoration,  and  wisely  leaves  it  in  its  limbless  per- 
fection. 

Ideal  art  The  ideal  of  art  is,  however,  comparative.  One 

TiZ^'^^^'  man's  mastery  is  the  far  off  horizon  of  another,  be- 
.Faise  art.  yond  which  for  the  moment  he  cannot  see.  So,  too,  the 
remote  possibility  of  a  second-rate  mind  is  only  the  actual  condi- 
tion of  a  superior,  whose  idealisms  would  be  a  sealed  book  to  the 
other.  Unrealization  is  the  bait  that  lures  them  on.  Every  man 
persistently  hopes  to  win  his  final  repose  by  perfect  work,  which 
always  seems  to  be,  but  never  is,  within  his  reach.  In  this  chase 
of  the  divine,  no  two  minds  advance  exactly  together.  If  we 
would  rightly  estimate  our  brother's  motive  and  aim,  this  truth 
must  be  considered.  Still,  though  the  focus  of  vision  in  individ- 
uals ever  varies,  there  are  general  principles  applicable  to  all. 


THE  PIETA  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


67 


Work  may  be  called  excellent,  even  if  there  be  inferiority  in 
execution,  if  it  suggests  noble  ideas  or  appeals  profoundly  to 
the  emotions,  and  is  kept  in  motive  within  the  limits  of  truth 
and  beauty.  But  that  is  false  which  compels  the  feelings  to 
apologize  for  violations  of  the  natural  and  probable  bn  some 
principle  removed  from  aesthetic  choice. 

Many  examples  of  this  character  are  forced  on  the  sight  by 
theological  intoleration  of  the  beautiful,  and  its  cumbersome,  un- 
natural symbolisms,  such  as  the  "  Madonnas  of  the  Bleeding 
Heart,"  and  the  "  Seven  Sorrows,"  with  their  ghastly  wounds,  and 
the  various  compositions  known  as  "  Pietas,"  in  which  the  dead 
Christ  is  either  represented  as  sitting  in  the  lap  of  his  mother, 
or  stiffly  stretched  out  on  the  knees  of  the  Virgin  and  saints. 
Even  symbolism  is  shorn  of  power  when  it  assumes  an  eccen- 
tric or  repulsive  shape.  Michael  Angelo's  marble  "  Pieta  "  is  the 
finest  and  best  treated  of  all  these  abnormal  conceptions,  but  it 
is  in  itself  an  impossible  event ;  for  no  mother  ever  could  or 
would  hold  the  naked,  rigid  corpse  of  a  full-grown  son,  disfig- 
ured by  numerous  wounds,  in  her  lap  in  such  a  flexible  attitude, 
overburdened  as  she  is  herself  with  cumbersome  drapery. 
Contrast  the  mourning  mother  in  this  position,  with  whatever 
fulness  of  meaning  the  theological  idea  may  give  to  it,  with  the 
pathetic  group  of  Niobe  protecting  her  youngest  child  from  the 
anger  of  a  god,  both  akin  in  motive  so  far  as  each  is  made  a 
sacrifice  to  appease  divine  wrath  according  to  the  commonly  ac- 
cepted beliefs,  and  decide  whether  the  ascetic  feeling  and  pro- 
found treatment  of  the  Christian  thought  is  to  be  preferred  to 
the  touching  conception  and  more  aesthetic  treatment  of  the 
pagan  artist ! 

There  are  two  aspects  to  images  of  deities,  pagan  or  Chris- 
tian ;  one  external  and  individual,  as  the  representation  of  a  su- 
pernal being  who  affects  men  for  good  or  evil  ;  the  other  figu- 
rative or  impersonal,  having  an  ethical,  symbolical,  or  purely  spir- 
itual sense.  The  first  chiefly  moves  the  emotions  ;  the  latter, 
the  intellect ;  the  practical  difference  being  the  distinction  that 
exists  between  abstract  ideas  and  positive  example  as  teachers  of 
morality.  Grecian  philosophy  finally  killed  Grecian  mythology 
by  constant  questioning,  while  Christianity  puts  its  stress  on  the 
heart  rather  than  the  head,  striving  to  train  men  to  think  and 
do  right  in  virtue  of  spontaneous  faith  instead  of  by  force  of 
logical  conviction.  Keeping  this  distinctive  action  in  mind,  it  is 
not  surprising,  that  while  with  paganism  a  decreasing  belief  in 


68 


DIOGENES  IN  HIS  TUB. 


the  personality  of  its  gods  and  goddesses,  and  an  increasing  one  in 
their  abstract  character,  should  have  weakened  the  power  of  its 
system  of  mythology  as  a  means  of  moral  government  or  of 
superhuman  reliance  in  the  trials  of  life,  leaving  the  pagan 
mind  open  to  skepticisms  of  every  shade,  the  opposite  bias  of 
Christian  teaching,  cultivating  feeling  to  excess,  should  have 
tended  to  constitute  a  new  popular  mythology,  based  on  the  per- 
sonifications of  the  current  virtues  of  the  new  religion,  the  wor- 
ship of  its  saints  and  martyrs  in  their  human  forms,  and  the 
actual  deification  of  its  most  important  personages,  such  as 
Christ  and  his  mother,  who  were  made  to  replace  God  himself 
in  the  love  and  adoration  of  mankind.  This  mental  revolution 
obeyed  an  organic  law  which  was  independent  of  creeds  ;  one 
of  which  certain  results  could  be  predicated,  whether  the  theology 
of  the  hour  was  derived  from  the  Iliad,  Koran,  or  the  Bible. 
Hence  in  analyzing  art  as  an  element  of  civilization,  we  must 
not  fail  to  observe  those  fundamental  laws  of  human  nature 
which  regulate  its  generic  forms,  in  order  more  clearly  to  detect 
the  specific  action  of  secondary  influences;  for  instance,  distinct 
classes  of  religious  ideas,  as  distinguished  from  the  instinct  of 
religion  itself. 

Perhaps  my  thought  may  be  clearer  by  saying  that  religion, 
love  of  the  beautiful,  and  hunger  for  the  ideal,  are  virtually 
common  and  coequal  necessities  of  our  souls,  a  sympathetic 
trinity  of  aspirations  begetting  eternal  principles  of  art,  but 
whose  various  shapes  are  simply  the  passing  liveries  of  intel- 
lectual fashions.  Both  paganism  and  Christianity,  while  doing 
homage  to  art,  have  changed  its  material  aspects  for  better  or 
worse,  according  to  the  ruling  thought  or  desire.  Pursuing  our 
retrospective  inquiry,  we  find  other  elucidations  of  this  state- 
ment. 

Diogenes.  I  have  shown  how  averse  Greek  art  was  to  asceti- 
HeaZTand  ci'^Hi,  but  the  bas-rclief  of  "Diogenes  in  his  Tub" 
Christian  forms  almost  an  exception  to  the  general  rule.  Yet 
gan  visions,  how  uulike  the  Christian  sentiment !  The  philosopher 
choses  a  populous  city,  wherein  to  exhibit  his  cynicism. 
Unlike  the  later  hermit,  he  seeks  an  audience  of  men,  not 
spirits ;  nor  does  he  covet  future  bliss  at  the  cost  of  present 
privation.  This  he  assumes  to  display  contempt  of  luxury  and 
those  honors  his  fellow-men  most  esteem.  Alexander  the  Great 
can  do  no  more  for  him  than  to  stand  out  of  his  sunshine.  Diog- 
enes lives  like  a  cur,  to  appear  to  be  the  most  independent  of 


ST.  JEROME  OF  A.  CARRACCL 


69 


men.  Philosophy,  like  religion,  has  its  fanatics;  but  in  the  case 
in  point,the  actor  did  not  care  whether  people  imitated  or  de- 
spised him.  Not  less  an  egoist,  the  Christian  hermit  allowed 
them  only  the  choice  between  hell-fire  or  doing  what  he  did. 

Compare  the  philosopher  in  his  kennel  with  the  "  St.  Jerome  " 
of  Agostino  Carracci,  also  at  Naples,  and  note  the  gulf  which 
divides  pagan  and  Christian  asceticism.  The  saint  is  by  himself 
in  the  wilderness  where  no  human  eye  can  witness  his  self-in- 
flicted penances.  He  has  fled  from  the  sight  of  men  to  com- 
mune alone  with  his  Maker,  but  bodiless  devils  torment  him 
nevertheless,  and  he  can  escape  their  sensual  persuasions  only 
by  kneeling  naked  on  the  bare  rocks,  and  gashing  his  breast 
with  a  sharp  stone  until  his  blood  stains  the  ground,  in  expia- 
tion of  involuntary  sin.  He  seeks  no  sunshine  to  warm  his 
limbs,  nor  does  he  fortify  his  soul's  endurance  by  a  placid  indif- 
ference to  his  fellow-men,  but  is  so  keenly  alive  to  their  spiritual 
welfare  that  the  mental  contemplation  of  their  wordliness  inten- 
sifies his  own  anguish  as  he  wrestles  with  the  Devil  as  much  for 
them  as  himself. 

The  composition  is  unusually  good  for  its  school.  There  is  no 
coarse  display  of  suflfering,  which  is  hinted  rather  than  expressed 
by  the  action  of  the  anchorite,  whose  head  and  expression  are  well 
studied.  The  landscape  is  wild  and  solemn ;  in  keeping  with  the 
main  motive,  and  the  coloring  equally  in  tone  with  its  mystic 
sadness. 

Heathen  and  Christian  grotesque  are  also  strikingly  opposed 
in  sentiment.  The  sensual,  ludicrous,  and  fanciful  obtain  in  the 
former,  whereas  in  the  other,  there  is  more  of  mysticism  and  moral 
significance.  One  was  invented  as  a  light  entertainment ;  the 
latter  for  a  profound  lesson.  Nowhere  is  this  more  fittingly  illus- 
trated than  in  a  fresco  of  the  "  Fall  of  Adam  "  by  an  unknown 
painter  in  the  subterranean  chapel  of  the  late  Certosa  Convent, 
near  Florence.  Eve  is  handing  the  fatal  fruit  to  Adam.  Swiftly 
flying  towards  them,  upborne  by  hideous  wings,  inclining  to  the 
woman,  is  a  death's  head  with  the  lower  jaw  gone  ;  a  frightful 
image  of  impending  evil. 

Besides  his  devotion  to  beauty  the  classical  artist  had  also 
to  inspire  him  a  faith  in  the  miracles  of  his  religion  equally  as 
sincere  and  well  attested  as  the  mediae valist  had  in  his.  To 
him  likewise,  by  means  of  prayer  and  invocation,  were  vouch- 
safed approving  visions  of  his  deities  as  remarkable  as  those 
recorded  by  Christians.    Fra  Angelico  was  not  more  earnest  in 


TO 


CHASTITY  OF  ANCIENT  ART. 


his  art  and  belief  than  many  of  his  pagan  brothers.  Hercules 
showed  himself  to  Parrhasius  to  be  painted,  as  Wallace  and 
other  departed  heroes  appeared  to  Blake,  or  the  Virgin  to  her 
numerous  limners.  There  is  abundant  evidence  to  establish  the 
fact  that  ecstatic  inspiration  has  not  been  confined  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  artist ;  nor  is  it,  of  any  creed,  without  ennobling  effect 
on  its  art.  In  some  occult  way  the  imagination  does  secure  a 
spiritual  ideal  quite  above  the  ordinary  standard  of  the  intellect, 
and  in  one  sense  out  of  the  limits  of  its  laws  and  perceptions. 

Pious  ancients  had  as  severe  rules  to  preserve  their  religious 
art  from  unchaste  influences  as  ever  had  the  schools  of  Christen- 
dom, except  the  Spanish,  which  was  controlled  by  the  Inquisition. 
Grecian  purists  denounced  the  use  of  courtesans  as  models  for 
goddesses  as  severely  as  did  Savonarola  the  painters  of  his  day 
for  similar  improprieties  towards  the  Virgin.  The  nude  or 
meretricious  in  sacred  art  came  into  favor  in  Christian  Italy 
perhaps  with  even  less  opposition  than  in  old  Greece.  While 
pagan  faith  remained  single-minded,  and  was  spiritually  inclined, 
it  loved  to  surround  its  pious  dead  or  dying  with  consoling 
images  like  the  "  virgins  ever  young,"  symbols  of  immortal  youth 
and  beauty  —  pagan  angfels,  we  can  call  them.  If  the  hope 
of  the  Greek  in  his  future  was  less  positive  than  the  Christian's, 
neither  was  he  affrighted  by  an  equal  fear  of  damnation. 

We  fail  in  adequately  appreciating  the  pure  art  of  Greece 
less  from  shortcomings  of  its  own  than  from  the  impure  exam- 
ples which  the  Renaissance  has  so  profusely  produced  in  classi- 
cal disguise,  but  which  in  reality  are  the  bastard  productions  of 
debased  Christian  taste,  and  would  be  condemned  by  none  more 
heartily  than  the  Greeks  themselves.  Modern  pagan  art  dis- 
credits the  genuine  all  the  more  because  of  its  being  often  mis- 
taken for  the  antique.  It  is  also  to  be  seen  everywhere,  while 
the  good  ancient  is  accessible  to  few,  and  requires  culture  to 
comprehend.  Campana's  "  Opere  Antiche  in  Plastica^^  Rome, 
1851,  is  remarkable  for  its  illustrations  of  some  of  the  finest 
classical  compositions  in  terra-cotta,  which  were  used  in  the 
ornamentation  of  Etruscan  dwellings.  By  examining  a  few,  we 
shall  the  better  understand  the  purity  of  spirit  and  execution  of 
the  best  ancient  sculpture. 

Bacchus.  The  popular  idea  of  Bacchus  or  Dionysius  is  that 

MarT.^^^  of  a  hilarious,  indecent  reveller,  usually  tipsy,  for 
Mercury.       which  Rubcus  is  largely  accountable.    Even  Michael 

Menelaus  l         ^  ^  o  j 

and  Helen.    Angelo  makcs  him  the  god  of  inebriety.    In  the 


THE  BACCHUS  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


71 


light  in  which  he  viewed  his  subject,  that  wonderful  statue  of 
Bacchus  in  the  Uffizi  is  consummate  art.  It  is  true  that  no 
sottish  drunkenness  paralyzes  those  gleaming  limbs  as  the  wine 
he  has  just  quaffed  from  the  tremblingly  upheld  cup  mounts 
to  his  brain,  but  the  sense-bewildering  stupor  is  visibly  given. 
His  head  swims,  eyelids  droop,  the  lower  lip  falls,  the  body 
sways,  legs  yield,  the  mind  reels,  and  the  entire  being  is  fast 
becoming  the  willing  victim  of  the  insidious  drink.  There  is 
nothing  forced  or  overdone  in  this  statue,  which  combines  the 
unity  and  finish  of  Grecian  art  with  the  vigorous  naturalism  of 
the  Etruscan  school. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  god  as  the  Greeks  knew  him.  Turn 
to  plates  31  and  32  of  Campana,  Vol.  II.  The  first  gives  the 
youthful  Bacchus  feted ;  the  second,  sleeping.  Both  forms  are 
elegant  and  refined,  brimming  with  healthful  joy  in  breathing 
"  the  breath  of  life."  There  is  no  sign  of  intoxication  in  the 
countenance  of  that  perfect  youth,  smiling  in  his  dreams.  A 
faint  touch  of  seriousness,  as  if  the  forecasting  of  life's  raaturer 
duties  cast  some  shadow  over  life's  young  joys,  may  be  seen  in 
the  exquisitely  moulded  features  of  the  other.  The  closest 
scrutiny  of  either  fiiils  to  detect  aught  in  their  conception  or 
treatment  that  discredits  man,  religion,  or  art.  While  prefigur- 
ing the  happiness  founded  on  conscious  health  and  right  use  of 
the  gifts  of  the  Creator,  they  appeal  equally  against  their  abuse. 
Even  in  the  plates  of  the  Bacchic  rites  there  appears  nothing 
sensual.  Draped  figures  offer  fi-uit  and  flowers  to  the  sound  of 
music  in  gratitude  to  their  divine  bestower. 

Plate  104,  representing  Venus  and  Mars,  rebukes  the  mod- 
ern handling  of  this  delicate  subject.  It  harmoniously  contrasts 
the  beauty  of  the  two  sexes  by  a  sort  of  rythmic  flow  of  line  and 
movement,  Venus  being  draped  so  as  to  allow  her  graceful 
contours  to  be  felt  rather  than  shown,  while  Mars  more  fully  ex- 
poses his  heroic  form  ;  their  joint  attitudes  being  as  chaste  as 
dignified. 

The  lithe  "  Mercury  "  of  Giovanni  di  Bologna  is  one  of  the 
finest  poetical  inventions  after  the  antique  that  the  Renaissance 
has  produced.  We  have,  however,  only  to  place  it  beside  the 
Grecian  "  Mercury  "  at  Naples  to  detect  how  far  it  fails  of  high 
art.  Not  to  mention  the  prominence  given  to  mere  muscular 
effort,  the  conceit  of  poising  it  on  the  breath  of  a  zephyr,  repre- 
sented in  a  lump  of  bronze,  would  be  tolerated  only  in  an  age 
which  was  pleased  with  the  eccentricities  of  a  Bernini,  whose 


72 


MENELAUS  AND  HELEN. 


facility  of  executing  his  far-fetched  or  superficial  fancies  blinded 
it  to  his  obvious  faults.  Without  any  true  choice  of  his  own, 
he  .worked  with  equal  zest  on  pagan  or  Christian  topics,  and, 
eager  only  to  gain  money  and  notoriety,  lowered  the  artistic 
standard  of  both,  without  fitly  representing  the  spirit  of  either. 
One  of  his  extravagances,  successfully  wrought  so  far  as  con- 
cerns the  telling  of  the  tale  in  a  picturesque  manner,  is  the  mar- 
ble group  of  "  Apollo  and  Daphne."  She  is  turning  into  a  tree, 
the  leaves  sprouting  from  her  hair  and  fingers,  just  as  the  amo- 
rous god  is  seizing  hold  of  her. 

See  also  how  the  story  of  another  flying  couple  is  told  by 
one  of  Campana's  plates.  No.  67.  Menelaus  and  Helen  are  re- 
turning from  Troy  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  four  spirited  horses  of 
the  Phidian  type.  The  erring  wife  drives  standing  erect,  with 
her  gaze  earnestly  directed  towards  her  bridal  home ;  the  light 
drapery  gracefully  caught  up  on  her  right  arm  follows  the  out- 
lines of  her  beautiful  figure  in  wave-like  ripples  as  it  is  pressed 
back  by  the  rapid  movement.  Age  and  sorrow  are  powerless  to 
lessen  her  ever  virgin  loveliness.  If  her  large,  gentle  eyes 
seem  a  little  sad,  they  draw  us  closer  to  the  repentant  woman. 
Menelaus,  a  noble,  gray-haired  figure,  stands  behind,  watchful  and 
mournful,  as  he,  too,  recalls  their  past  experience,  with  one  hand 
resting  for  security  on  the  shoulder  of  his  wife,  while  the  other 
presses  against  his  side  in  sympathy  with  his  severe  thought. 

The  taste  displayed  in  this  terra-cotta  must  be  seen,  to  be 
appreciated  as  it  deserves.  This  and  similar  examples  should 
be  made  commonly  known,  if  only  to  make  conspicuous  the  vast 
difference  that  exists  between  the  current  ideas  of  classical  art 
derived  from  bastard  Renaissant  work  and  modern  plagiarisms 
and  the  really  fine  antique,  the  nobility  of  which  would  consign  all 
the  false  and  worthless  to  the  limbo  of  popular  detestation.  Even 
in  its  rarer  realistic  motives,  taste  was  as  severely  pure,  telling 
the  story  with  Homeric  dignity  and  simplicity,  scrupulously 
avoiding  unnecessary  detail,  adding  no  ornament  for  its  own 
sake,  but  doing  and  saying  much  with  few  and  simple  means,  the 
consummate  unity  of  which,  both  as  to  execution  and  expression, 
constitutes  their  highest  claim  to  noble  art.  No.  71  of  the 
above  series,  "  Ulysses  recognized  by  his  Nurse  and  Dog,"  is  a 
precious  example  of  Grecian  composition  answering  to  our 
genre  subjects. 

Repose inart.  No  attribute  of  classical  art  is  more  obvious  than 
iano.*         its  repose  or  reserved  strength.    Most  modern  work 


DUKE  GIULANO. 


73 


seems  exhausted  by  the  creative  effort,  and  suggests  the  lim- 
its of  the  artist's  power  rather  than  the  illimitation  of  art 
itself.  This  is  more  apparent  in  the  later  Rennaissant  than 
in  its  earliest  period.  Nevertheless,  Christian  art  has  some 
special  triumphs.  One  of  the  chief  is  the  statue  of  Duke 
Giulano,  miscalled  "  Lorenzo "  his  nephew,  whose  real  statue 
is  that  which  commonly  bears  the  uncle's  name  in  the  guide- 
book descriptions  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Medici  at  Florence. 
Kightly  is  it  named  "  II  Penseroso,"  for  the  stone  thinks.  It  is 
as  profoundly  suggestive  as  the  finest  classical  work.  Indeed, 
the  subtile  idealism  of  this  broadly  treated  statue  lies  in  its 
mental  repose  or  impersonification  of  concealed  thought  which 
suggests  sphinx-like  problems  of  human  fate.  Neither  this  nor 
its  companion  are  of  particular  value  as  portraits,  although  their 
style  is  replete  with  vigorous  realism.  They  display  in  a  grand 
way  the  vast  resources  of  Michael  Angelo's  genius,  which  could 
thus  make  out  of  very  ordinary  subjects,  for  neither  of  the 
brothers  was  in  any  wise  a  remarkable  man,  monuments  that 
would  do  honor  to  the  greatest  characters.  Possibly  a  latent 
satire  was  intended  in  the  contrast  between  the  real  and  the 
marble  dukes. 

The  recumbent  colossal  figures  belonging  to  these      ,  , 

r  o    ,  .      MtchaeJ,  An- 

monuments  are  nideed  creations  of  the  robust,  spirit-  geio's  "Night 
ualized  Etruscan  stamp,  with  a  unity  of  allegorical  fng_^^^°'^"'' 
meaning,  deeply  affecting  in  its  bearing  on  the  tyranny 
of  the  ruling  family  that  ordered  them.  We  miss  in  them 
somewhat  of  the  severe  simplicity  and  repose  of  "  II  Pensero- 
so," but  they  are  in  admirable  harmony  with  its  enigmatical 
thought.  Nothing  can  exceed  them  in  intensity  of  enigma. 
The  spectator  gives  it  a  personal,  historical,  or  abstract  inter- 
pretation, according  to  his  own  mood ;  but  Michael  Angelo  in- 
dignantly flung  his  riddle  in  stone  to  his  betrayed,  apathetic 
countrymen,  to  be  solved  as  they  liked,  while  he  hid  its  key  in 
his  own  wounded  soul.  Like  all  immortal  speech,  it  speaks  as 
forcibly  to-day  as  it  did  three  hundred  years  ago,  and,  as  time 
rolls  on,  with  vaster  meaning  as  men  rise  to  the  level  of  the 
artist's  mind.  Meantime  these  effigies  appear  like  beings  of  su- 
perhuman origin,  coffined  in  unsympathetic  matter,  half-await- 
ing, half-struggling  for  their  new  birth. 

Michael  Angelo's  "  Moses  "  likewise  is  more  akin  to  the  prim- 
itive Etruscan  types  of  ideal  characterization  than  to  the  Gre- 
cian.   The  lawgiver  is  an  awe-inspiring  being,  of  stupendous 


74, 


MOSES  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


organization,  wielding  the  thunders  of  Jehovah,  whose  messen- 
ger he  is  to  a  stubborn,  backsliding  people.  His  office  is  to 
command,  not  persuade.  Mark  that  he  is  the  rough  Moses  of 
barbarous  times,  not  the  meek  Moses  of  ours !  Those  heavy 
and  coarse  lines,  the  excessive  muscle,  and  the  sternly  empha- 
sized features  throughout,  do  not  agree  with  the  common  notion 
of  the  man  who  led  the  Israelites  up  out  of  Egypt ;  but  the 
sculptor  rightly  conceives  him  as  the  messenger  from  Sinai,  fresh 
from  the  thunders  and  lightnings  of  their  Lord  God,  with  the 
stone  commandment  in  his  hand,  and  the  divine  threats  on  his 
face,  if  his  people  broke  them.  Maybe  the  sublimity  of  the 
conception  is  weakened  by  the  mystical  horns,  denoting  super- 
human functions,  on  the  head  of  Moses.  But  the  sculptor  has 
not  the  pliable  resources  of  the  palette  to  aid  his  symbolization, 
which  as  in  the  golden  nimbus  of  the  older  painters,  or  the 
transfigured  atmosphere  of  the  later,  suggests  harmoniously  with 
the  whole  picture  the  celestial  glory  which  clairvoyant  eyes  see 
around  inspired  persons.  Consequently  the  supernatural  which 
can  be  made  so  effective  in  the  one  may  cause  the  failure  of  the 
sublime  in  the  other,  because  of  its  difference  in  material.  The 
Greeks,  however,  did  often  depart  from  the  truths  of  nature  to 
symbolize  their  deities  or  add  to  their  majestic  look.  Whether 
Michael  Angelo  with  this  precedent  in  view  to  legitimize  his  use 
of  the  horns,  has  succeeded  as  well  in  his  intent  for  "  Moses  "  as 
they  did  for  Jupiter,  each  critic  must  judge  for  himself.  The 
practice  seems  questionable  in  either. 

Thus  far  the  best  exhibit  of  Christian  art  falls  between  the 
twelfth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  which  constitute  the  emphatic 
period  of  the  religious  phase.  In  sincerity  of  purpose,  original- 
ity of  expression,  and  loftiness  of  aim,  it  compares  favorably  with 
the  soundest  period  of  pagan  art.  It  seems  strange  that  the 
beautiful  art  of  Greece  should  have  been  succeeded  in  the  same 
race  by  one  so  sterile  and  disagreeable  as  the  Byzantine.  But 
this  goes  to  show  that  art  itself  is  less  dependent  on  blood  or 
climate  than  on  intellectual  influences.  The  religious  idea  was  the 
germ  which  made  pagan  art  supremely  beautiful  while  guided 
by  its  mythological  notions ;  the  same  idea  made  Christian  paint- 
ing superlatively  formal  and  unsesthetic,  when  controlled  by 
asceticism,  and  finally  becoming  iconoclastic,  utterly  drove  sculp- 
ture out  of  the  country  in  which  it  had  risen  to  its  highest  em- 
inence. 


THE  WESTERN  CHURCH. 


75 


Bad  art  acts  after  the  instinct  of  the  venomous 

TXTi  M      Holu  good 

reptile,  which  fascinates  before  it  poisons.  W  lule  and  had  art 
nothing  is  surer  to  avenge  its  own  debasement  because 
of  its  appeal  to  the  senses,  good  art,  with  equal  instinctive  action, 
expands  and  ennobles  the  mind.  Good  art,  bad  art,  and  no  art, 
all  depend  on  the  human  will.  If  an  authority  like  that  of  the 
Eastern  Church  could  almost  annihilate  it  in  Greece,  or  a  Protest- 
ant preacher  like  Fox  banish  it  from  human  culture  in  a  sect,  or 
a  patronage  like  that  of  the  Renaissance  revive  it  only  to  mani- 
fest its  capacity  of  luxurious,  vainglorious  sensuality,  we  may 
be  certain  that  art  only  needs  the  right  kind  of  stimulus  with 
any  people  to  make  it  highly  instrumental  in  promoting  their 
welfare.  The  sooner  we  rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that  art  by 
itself  is  the  cause  of  the  corruption  and  downfall  of  nations,  the 
better.  It  no  more  causes  their  destruction  than  it  does  their 
existence.  In  either  event  it  is  a  phenomenon  which  marks 
national  destiny,  an  effect  more  than  a  cause.  If  mind  incline 
to  gesthetic  culture,  and  be  dominated  by  any  special  desires  or 
ambitions,  it  will  manifest  them  by  means  of  art-forms  whose 
moral  aspects  will  respond  to  the  prevailing  feeling,  whatever  it 
is.  Whenever  the  common  mind  demands  the  indecent,  vulgar, 
or  meretricious,  it  gets  it  in  pagan  or  papal  Rome,  Catholic 
France,  or  Protestant  Holland,  irrespective  of  the  prohibitions 
of  creeds,  unless,  as  in  Spain,  the  temporal  and  ecclesiastical 
powers  acting  in  conjunction  have  sufficient  force  to  stifle  every 
manifestation  of  the  popular  will  not  acceptable  to  them.  Art 
may  represent,  and  in  that  way  aid  to  extend  vice,  virtue,  or 
religion,  but  it  does  not  create  them.  Whenever  impressed  in 
their  exclusive  service,  it  is  forced  just  so  far  out  of  its  own 
legitimate  being. 

The  Western  Church  took  an  opposite  course  to  the  Eastern, 
but  none  the  less  undertook  to  control  art,  by  favoring  sculpture 
and  advising  beautiful  types  for  the  Saviour.  But  Rome,  hav- 
ing lost  its  skilled  Grecian  and  Etruscan  artists,  did  not  know 
how  to  accomplish  this  end.  For  many  centuries  art  in  Italy 
continued  to  be  ruder  than  in  the  East,  where  there  existed  at 
Constantinople,  to  the  time  of  its  capture  by  the  Turks,  a  de- 
generate school,  which  adhered  to  some  of  the  traditions  and 
technical  treatment  that  obtained  in  better  days.  But  while  the 
Byzantine  empire  held  fast  to  its  uniform  methods,  there  came  a 
reaction  to  Italy  in  the  thirteenth  century  which  gave  an  alto- 
gether fresh  appearance  to  its  art.    The  new  style  resembled 


76 


THE  "TERRIBLE  MANNER: 


that  of  ancient  Rome  derived  from  Etruria,  in  its  round, 
stout  forms,  proneness  to  picturesque  composition, 
of^itaiy.^^^^^  variety  of  detail,  vigorous  movement,  and  sturdy  in- 
mythoiogy  dividualism.  Greek  art,  by  sacrificing  individuality 
of  character  in  detail  overmuch  to  idealization  of 
form  in  the  mass,  produced,  both  in  architecture  and  sculpture,  a 
certain  monotony  of  executive  expression  opposed  to  the  greater 
latitude  of  method  and  more  robust  design  of  the  indigenous 
Italian  schools.  The  Greek  artist  required  the  utmost  nicety 
of  touch  to  attain  those  imperceptible,  delicate  curves,  graduated 
to  that  exact  anatomical  truth  which  was  requisite  to  the  per- 
fect harmony  in  form  and  exalted  intellectual  aspiration,  which 
were  the  foundations  of  his  theory  of  idealization  ;  but  the  Ital- 
ian of  the  Etruscan  stamp  was  more  prosaic  in  his  ajoprehension 
of  the  requirements  of  art.  He  based  his  theory  more  on  the 
human-actual ;  his  lines  were  harder  and  less  flexible,  more  di- 
rected towards  the  governing  movement  or  expression,  and  less 
to  beauty  of  contours  ;  his  proportions  were  less  exact ;  his 
symmetry  less  perfect ;  in  short,  his  was  the  "  terrible  manner  " 
of  Luca  Signorelli  or  Buonarotti,  as  opposed  to  the  nobility  of 
style  of  Phidias  or  the  seductive  grace  of  Praxiteles.  But 
while  the  Byzantine  lost  his  freedom  in  the  mazes  of  mysticism, 
his  rival,  feeding  his  knowledge  anew  from  nature  and  the  an- 
tique, with  refreshed  brain  and  hand,  gained  the  vacated  throne 
of  art.  With  it  he  secured  an  influence  almost  equal  to  that 
which  his  profession  enjoyed  in  its  prime  in  antiquity  ;  such, 
perhaps,  in  intensity  and  completeness  over  all  classes  of  society, 
as  the  world  will  not  again  see,  because  it  can  never  be  put  back 
to  a  similar  condition. 

Before  the  invention  of  printing,  art  was  the  sole  literature 
of  the  masses.  They  were  trained  by  it  to  see  as  the  church 
and  state  would  have  them  believe.  The  essential  forces  of 
things,  whether  of  religion,  government,  family,  or  the  individ- 
ual, were  imaged  in  the  external.  Hence,  authority,  wealth, 
and  rank  of  every  sort  entered  into  a  contest  of  eesthetic  dis- 
play. Life  was  made  up  of  lavish  show  and  blood-stirring 
rivalries  on  the  part  of  the  ruling  castes,  and  of  hard  knocks  and 
intense  emotions  of  the  poorer  classes.  Few  of  the  lords  of 
Italian  towns,  and  not  many  popes  of  those  days,  if  tried  by 
modern  law,  would  escape  death  or  imprisonment.  Crimes 
were  then  regarded  as  grand  passions,  uncomfortable  to  the  vic- 
tim, though  a  necessary  perquisite  of  rank.    Politics  were  a 


LOVE  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  ART.  77 


game  of  heads  aud  property.  What  with  a  gorgeous  ritual,  an 
equally  gorgeous  style  of  aristocratic  life,  magnificence  of  state 
on  the  surface,  and  a  stormy  sea  of  passions  around  him,  the  ar- 
tist had  the  best  possible  stimulus  constantly  before  his  eyes. 

Although  Christianity  had  extinguished  the  hostile  mythology, 
it  did  not  succeed  in  eradicating  the  feeling  that  had  given  rise 
to  it.  Before  books  had  made  general  education  more  practica- 
ble, and  by  teaching  men  to  think,  gradually  weaned  them  from 
inane  idolatry,  and  consequently  to  a  greater  reliance  on  abstract 
ideas  than  on  images  for  their  intellectual  sustenance,  it  may 
have  been  impossible  for  any  sect  to  have  counteracted  the  pop- 
ular tendency  to  superstition.  Be  this  so  or  not,  a  new  mythol- 
ogy had  sprung  up,  in  spiritual  aspiration  higher  and  in  morality 
purer  than  the  pagan,  but  which  left  men  as  prone  to  idolatry 
as  ever.  Though  names  were  changed,  their  inclinations  re- 
mained as  they  had  been.  There  was  no  argument  a  devout 
Romanist  could  use  for  his  rites  that  had  not  been  given  with 
equal  force  by  pious  heathen  for  theirs.  In  either  case  the  pop- 
ular faith  gave  a  prodigious  impulse  to  art,  chiefly  in  causing  a 
demand  for  sacred  images,  which  speedily  became  objects  of 
stolid  worship  to  the  crowd.  So  charitable  in  practice  was  the 
Christian  priest  to  the  old  worship  which  he  verbally  denounced, 
that  he  kept  for  his  own  rites  a  copious  share  of  the  dead  forms 
of  paganism.  This  may  have  been  a  politic  concession  to  their 
adaptability  to  the  new  uses.  To  art  it  was  a  boon  in  variety 
and  richness  of  its  subject-matter. 

The  main  features  of  the  Christian  mythology  in  its  ecstatic 
or  Love  aspect,  as  distinguished  from  the  ascetic,  or  that  of 
Fear,  which  have  been  already  noted,  are  substantially  these. 
As  an  abode  for  the  blessed  and  the  new  deities  there  is  a  heaven, 
substituted  for  the  pagan  Olympus,  more  vague  as  to  locality 
and  with  less  variety  of  enjoyment.  Morally  considered,  it  was 
an  Olympus  cleansed  of  carnality.  Architecturally,  a  new 
Jerusalem ;  a  holy  city  "  coming  down  from  God,"  glorious  be- 
yond description,  paved  with  pure  gold  "  as  it  were  transparent 
glass,"  and  abounding  in  all  manner  of  precious  stones  ;  each 
gate  "  one  solid  pearl ;  "  within,  music,  the  song,  water  of  life 
"  clear  as  crystal,"  and  trees  that  bear  fruit  "  for  the  healing  of 
the  nations."  Most  lovely  is  this  city  revealed  to  St.  John. 
Can  art  reveal.it  to  our  senses  ?  Surely  it  might  do  better  than 
its  ordinary  hierarchal  composition,  so  like  in  arrangement  to  the 
old  notions  in  regard  to  the  Homeric  gods,  only  more  formal 


78 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM. 


and  orderly ;  singularly  uninviting  too,  when  compared  with  the 
The  art-  type  given  in  Revelation.  Rows  of  the  dignitaries 
heaven.  Church,  martyrs,  saints,  prophets,  and  apostles 

sitting  on  clouds,  on  each  side  of  the  Triune  God,  represented  by 
two  distinct  persons  and  one  emblem,  or  by  one  form  with  three 
faces  and  the  god-mother;  sometimes  cumbersomely  draped  or 
unseemly  naked;  a  solemn  council  watching  the  condemnation 
of  sinners,  and  the  coming  of  the  saved  to  join  them  in  chanting 
praises  to  the  Supreme  and  the  Son  who  sit  majestic  in  their 
midst :  such  was  the  average  idea  art  gave  of  the  new  heavens. 
It  really  looks  as  if  it  could  not  get  the  old  paganism  wholly  out 
of  its  mind. 

But  there  is  a  more  original  and  pleasing  view  to  the  new 
religious  art.  It  had  two  copious  sources  of  motives,  one  in  the 
ideas  and  emotions  more  properly  belonging  to  the  revealed  faith, 
and  the  other  in  its  great  store  of  legends  and  traditions.  Bible 
history  in  the  main  was  of  too  remote  a  period,  besides  belonging 
to  a  despised  race,  to  possess  that  direct  influence  over  the  people 
that  the  stories  of  their  own  saints  had,  whose  images  were  con- 
stantly before  their  eyes,  whose  lives  were  held  up  as  their  own 
rule  of  piety,  and  the  pressure  of  whose  conventual  institutions 
came  daily  home  to  them.  Hence,  although  the  old  Judaic 
chronicles  did  afford  to  the  artists  some  of  their  most  important 
compositions,  this  source  of  inspiration  was  meagre  compared 
with  more  recent  sacred  history,  or  with  the  physical  sufferings 
of  Christ,  which  were  the  most  popular  topics,  until  driven 
somewhat  into  the  background  by  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  and 
the  themes  derived  from  her  apocryphal  biography.  Their  in- 
tent and  spirit,  however,  were  far  more  elevated  than  the  motives 
which  came  directly  from  the  ordinary  ascetic  feeling.  They 
were  intended  to  represent  the  unsurpassable  sacrifice  of  the 
Saviour  and  his  deified  mother,  growing  out  of  their  love  for 
men,  and  by  contrasting  its  height,  depth,  and  degree  with  hu- 
man ills,  in  the  light  of  a  glorious  resurrection  from  the  grave, 
practically  shown  them  by  Him  whom  they  crucified,  but  were 
now  able  to  behold  as  their  heavenly  King  ;  by  this  immense 
contrast  of  self-sacrifice  with  acquired  bliss  as  a  lesson  and  hope 
for  themselves,  they  were  to  become  reconciled  to  an  existence 
beset  with  pain,  toil,  and  disappointment.  Even  the  joy-loving 
Greeks  recognized  the  uses  of  seeming  evils  as  guides  to  wis- 
dorti.  Their  •  philosophy  was  not  wholly  a  theory  of  pleasure. 
Hear  what  -^schylus  says :    "  For  Zeus  leads  men  in  the  way  of 


THE  WAY  OF  WISDOM. 


79 


wisdom  ;  he  orders  that  suffering  should  be  our  best  school." 
This  is  sound  Christian  sentiment,  but  foreign  in  meaning  and  ap- 
plication to  the  distorted  views  of  rigid  ascetics.  The  great  dis- 
tinction, therefore,  between  them  and  those  who  interpreted  the 
ways  of  Providence  in  the  sense  of  the  words  of  ^schylus  or 
the  acts  of  Christ,  as  shone  by  art,  is  particularly  seen  in  the 
diverse  sentiments  of  Fear  and  Love  as  influencing  life.  Fear 
provided  the  Hell  before  described.  It  drove  men  to  the  com- 
panionship and  habits  of  brutes  in  the  wilderness  ;  like  the  Indian 
fakirs,  to  court  and  invent  sufferings  and  glory  in  them,  not  as 
leading  to  wisdom,  for  they  began  and  ended  in  folly,  but  to  en- 
sure reward.  The  greater  spiritual  insight  of  Love  taught  men 
that  Christ's  heaven  must  be  won  by  following  his  example  of 
self-denial ;  preferring  others ;  by  mixing  with  mankind,  not  by 
avoiding  them  ;  by  suffering,  if  it  needs  be,  for  truth  and  justice  ; 
by  wisely  preferring,  whenever  called  to  choose,  joys  eternal  to 
pleasures  temporal.  This  was  the  true  "  way  of  wisdom  "  that 
Zeus,  or  God,  ordained  and  the  ordering  He  gave  to  suffering  to 
persuade  men  to  enter  into  it. 

One  of  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  Christian  art  ^ 

.  Wisdom 

has  ever  been  to  express  m  the  human  countenance  through  suf- 
the  consciousness  of  having  obtained  "  the  way  of 
wisdom "  through  suffering.  This  has  given  rise  to  a  special 
idealism  confined  to  a  few  painters  and  sculptors,  who  felt  in 
their  own  hearts  the  emotions  they  depicted,  and  lived  the  lives 
that  begot  them.  Their  cognizance  of  the  immortal  and  spiritual 
apprehension  of  men,  as  separated  from  the  temporal  and  ma- 
terial, was  as  complete  as  mortals  can  have.  Ecstatic  visions  left 
in  their  souls  a  lovely  apprehension  of  divine  things,  which  they 
transferred  to  their  art.  Their  clairvoyant  views  of  celestial 
imagery  thus  became  palpable  truths  to  the  people.  So  beau- 
tiful are  their  happiest  efforts  that  we  involuntarily  overlook 
technical  shortcomings  in  their  profound  suggestion  of  things 
beyond  the  sphere  of  earth,  and  of  a  joy  that  comes  only  from 
believing  intensely.  As  there  can  be  no  worldly  standard 
whereby  to  test  them,  like  all  creative  art  of  the  highest  quality, 
they  must  be  interpreted  by  their  own  rules  of  composition. 

It  was  but  natural  that  there  should  be  this  rebound  in  ideas 
and  imagery  from  the  attempts  to  familiarize  the  religious 
mind  with  the  material  horrors  of  hell.  In  both  cases  the  im- 
aginations of  artists  were  stimulated  to  portray  supernatural 
degrees  of  each.    I  do  not  know  that  I  have  seen  the  most 


80 


FRA  ANGELICO. 


terrifying  pictures  of  eternal  torment  that  Oriental  art,  chiefly 
of  Per.^ia  and  India,  the  parent-countries  of  the  doctrine,  has 
produced  ;  but  the  lust  of  Eastern  imagination  in  this  direction, 
that  has  met  my  view,  frightfully  repulsive  as  it  is  in  its  ingenu- 
ity of  tortures  and  diabolism,  has  never  equalled  the  Christian. 
The  condition  of  men  in  the  next  world,  as  defined  by  the  tenets 
of  the  Church,  and  their  experiences  in  securing  salvation, 
offered  an  inexhaustible  variety  of  new  and  strange  motives, 
and  also  opened  to  art  a  field  of  action  more  elevated  in  senti- 
metit  and  compreherjsive  in  range  than  had  ever  been  shown  to 
the  pagan  mind.  Beauty  was  divested  of  earthly  qualities,  and 
clad  in  a  celestial  garb;  used  not  to  express  the  pleasure  of 
man  in  himself,  but  as  a  token  of  the  divine  pleasure  in  him  as 
a  being  born  anew  through  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  For 
the  first  time  men  were  made  to  feel,  by  the  medium  of  painting 
and  sculpture,  that  there  was  in  store  for  them  eternal  joy  and 
surpassing  peace. 

Those  who  have  not  looked  with  sympathetic  feeling  on  the 
finest  examples  of  this  exceptional  and  short-lived  art,  may  con- 
sider as  exaggerated  even  a  tame  allusion  to  them.  I  confess  it 
is  difficult  for  me  to  view  them  without  experiencing  a  rapture 
akin  to  theirs.  To  those  who  do  not  appreciate  their  devout 
spirit  and  singleness  of  purpose,  they  are  a  "  stumbling-block 
and  foolishness."  The  spectator  requires  to  be  lifted  by  his  own 
imagination  into  a  condition  of  mind  that  with  the  artist,  as  the 
seer,  owes  its  being  to  direct  influx  from  a  higher  world.  Im- 
ages of  celestial  things  are  results  of  affinities  of  the  soul 
drawing  them  down  to  it — an  illumination  of  mind  from  the 
Great  Spirit  itself.  Earthly  models  become  of  secondary  sig- 
nificance. The  informing  life  of  any  supernal  art  must  descend 
from  above. 

FraAngeiico,  ■  Angelico  is  a  representative  artist  of  this 
Niccoia,       class.     Others  have  surpassed  him  in  certain  tech- 

Pisano,  Ma-  ,  .    t  ,  , 

saccio,  Ghi-  nical  details,  but  none  nave  carried  art  as  a  whole 
their  succes-  farther  in  this  direction.  He  has  succeeded  as  none 
other  in  making  visible  the  immaculate  chastity  and 
tenderness  of  the  Madonna,  the  ecstatic  joy  of  martyrs  and  the 
elect  as  they  enter  paradise  carpeted  with  fragrant  flowers  and 
bright  with  the  smile  of  God ;  his  are  the  purest  and  loveliest 
angels  that  welcome  the  saved  ;  the  most  gracious  and  winning 
archangels  in  their  panoplies  of  resplendent  gems  :  in  short,  his 
was  the  eye  that  best  penetrated  the  state  of  soul  that  gives  to 


NICCOLA  PISANO. 


81 


men  and  objects  their  most  precious  spiritual  endowment.  Cer- 
tain of  his  works  can  only  be  compared  to  the  marvellous  echo 
of  the  Baptistery  at  Pisa,  which  seems  like  a  chorus  of  angels, 
answering  out  of  the  spheres  the  cry  of  humanity  to  the 
"  Father  who  is  in  heaven." 

Sublimity  is  not  the  forte  of  Fra  Angelico,  neither  is  strength 
nor  force.  It  is  only  in  that  single-minded  art  which  expresses 
divine  love  and  the  sweetness  of  saving  sacrifice  that  he  excels. 
His  style  is  the  exact  impress  of  his  own  monastic  habits  and 
feeling,  and  cannot  be  said  to  owe  anything  to  Etruscan  or' 
Grecian  influence. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  Niccola  Pisano,  nearly  two  centuries 
earlier,  to  whom  sculpture  owes  a  revival  in  Italy,  similar  to> 
that  which  Giotto  a  little  later  gave  to  painting.  They  origi- 
nated those  schools  which  attained  their  climax  in  the  productions- 
of  Leonardo,  Raphael,  and  Michael  Angelo,  and  which  occupied' 
themselves  chiefly  with  the  scenes  and  personages  of  the  Chris- 
tian mythology.  Their  manner  was  decidedly  Etruscan,  show- 
ing that  the  national  feeling  had  survived  through  all  political! 
changes,  and  whenever  the  indigenous  art  had  liberty  of  actiom 
it  instinctively  clung  to  its  fundamental  characteristics  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  Grecian.  Giotto's  studies  were  more  directly  from; 
nature  than  those  of  Niccola,  who  took  up  sculpture  just  where 
the  Romans  left  it  when  paganism  began  to  recoil  before 
Christianity.  In  form  he  is  guided  by  the  antique,  but  his  ideas 
are  taken  from  his  religion,  while  his  taste  in  composition  is 
realistic,  crowding  his  panels  with  short,  rounded  figures,  as  was 
the  old  manner,  and  sometimes  appropriating;  them  directly 
from  Etruscan  sculpture. 

The  second  great  impulse  was  given  by  Masaccio  to  painting^, 
and  by  Ghiberti  to  sculpture.  Both  delighted  in  the  picturesque,, 
giving  to  accessories  and  backgrounds  their  right  place  in  com-- 
position,  treating  them  with  the  same  attention  that  the  previous 
masters  had  bestowed  only  on  dominant  features.  This  was  due 
to  an  advanced  knowledge  of  perspective  and  anatomy.  But 
the  practice  which  made  painting  a  more  complete  and  truthful 
representation  of  objects  was  misapplied  by  Ghiberti  to  sculp- 
ture, who  sought  to  give  to  it  that  variety  of  detail,  aerial 
distance  and  foreshortening  which  can  only  be  properly  rendered 
by  the  sister-art.  The  skill  shown  in  the  bronze  gates  of  the 
Baptistery  at  Florence  all  but  redeems  his  innovation.  Com- 
pare them,  however,  with  the  frescoes  of  Masaccio  in  the  Car- 
6 


82 


DONATELLO. 


mine,  and  it  will  be  seen  how  unwise  it  is  for  sculpture  to  go  out 
of  its  own  sphere  in  an  attempt  to  rival  painting. 

Donatello's  manner  is  opposed  to  that  of  Ghiberti.  His  severe 
realism,  broad,  vigorous  modelling,  and  effective  character  and 
movement,  apart  from  ideal  form,  make  up  a  thorough  and  mas- 
terly embodiment  of  the  primitive  Etruscan  feeling  modified  to 
original  Christian  types.  St.  George  of  Orsanmichele  has  no 
special  nobility  of  form,  and  only  a  rather  commonplace  head, 
but  the  statue  quivers  with  intrepid  passion.  Every  chisel- 
stroke  on  that  soul-lit  marble  gleams* kniglitly  defiance  to  wrong. 
His  St.  Johns  and  Magdalens  are  effective  examples  of  ascetic 
sculpture,  almost  repulsive  in  their  coarse  expression  of  life,  but 
truthful  and  earnest. 

A  counterpart  to  him  in  dramatic  force,  as  shown  in  painting, 
is  seen  in  Piero  della  Francesca,  whose  frescoes  in  St.  Francesco 
at  Arezzo  are  among  the  finest  of  this  prolific  epoch.  There  is 
a  Madonna  of  the  Annunciation,  thoroughly  Shakespearian  in 
conception —  Lady  Macbeth  in  pose  and  feature ;  certes  no  woman 
of  tender  sorrow  and  self- forgetting  love.  His  legend  of  the 
"  Finding  of  the  Cross  by  Queen  Helena  "  has  vigorous  charac- 
terization; less  beauty  and  grace  than  D.  Ghirlaudajo's  elabo- 
rately varied  compositions,  but  a  greater  capacity  of  seizing  upon 
the  story  and  concentrating  attention  on  its  main  points.  He 
composed  his  figures  less  to  exhibit  themselves  than  to  do  his 
bidding.  Ghirlandajo's  practice  is  the  contrary.  Both  disre- 
regard  local  truths,  and  impress  contemporary  costumes  and  per- 
sonages into  their  service,  or  invent,  as  best  suits  their  purpose. 

In  purity  of  form,  harmony  of  composition,  ecstatic  joy,  and 
general  spirituality,  Lucca  della  Robbia's  own  works  in  enam- 
elled terra-cotta  take  rank  with  the  pictures  of  Fra  Angelico. 
For  life-like  realism  and  genuine,  spontaneous  action  and  ex- 
pression, his  bas-reliefs  in  marble  of  the  singing  boys,  now  in 
the  Uffizi  gallery,  are  unmatched.  A  delightful  artist  of  great 
executive  calibre  was  not  altogether  lost  to  the  world  by  his 
abandoning  marble  for  the  more  flexible  clay,  —  which  he  made 
equally  imperishable  by  the  secret  of  the  stanniferous  glaze 
which  goes  by  his  name,  —  but  was  obscured  in  a  field  of  sec- 
ondary importance. 

The  inborn  feeling  of  Raphael  is  for  classical  beauty  and 
grace.  In  this  he  is  the  greatest  exception  of  his  country. 
Perugino  in  a  weaker  and  somewhat  ascetic  way,  affected  the 
graceful,  but  his  is  a  manner  that  does  not  comport  well  with 


LEONARDO, 


83 


the  sterner  requirements  of  Christian  art.  The  impressible 
temperament  of  Raphael  made  him  capable  of  noble  art  in  any 
style.  It  is,  however,  in  compositions  like  the  "  Galatea," 
"  Cupid,"  "Psyche,"  and  "  Marsyas,"  which  are  vital  with  the 
spirit  of  the  antique,  that  he  is  most  himself. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci  best  combines  the  good  points  of  previous 
schools,  without  being  carried  away  by  the  prevailing  tendencies 
of  any  one.  Titian  and  Correggio  produced  more  splendid  re- 
sults from  given  means  in  color  than  he  did ;  Michael  Angelo 
also  excelled  him  in  design  and  intensity  of  meaning,  and  Ra- 
phael in  variety  and  facility  of  invention.  Each  threw  more  of 
himself  into  his  art  than  Leonardo  did,  but  Titian  least  of  all. 

Michael  Angelo  alone  was  governed  by  deep  religious  senti- 
ment. The  others  were  as  readily  impressed  by  antique  or 
secular  motives  as  by  those  more  properly  belonging  to  the 
Christian  belief.  When  their  desires  had  free  range,  they  went 
gladly  to  sensuous  beauty  or  the  expression  of  human  life  in 
its  worldly  and  sumptuous  aspects.  Even  ascetic  or  spiritual 
topics  were  by  them  used  as  occasions  to  exhibit  their  magic 
coloring  and  power  of  design  rather  than  the  special  signifi- 
cance of  their  nominal  creeds,  which  set  lightly  on  them  all, 
though  outwardly  conforming  to  the  established  rites. 

Leonardo  seems  to  have  been  without  any  special  bias.  His 
taste  was  catholic  and  impartial.  He  could  paint  a  voluptuous 
Leda  or  chaste  Virgin  with  equal  skill  and  coolness.  If  he 
were  cold  to  the  incentives  of  religion,  he  had  no  more  warmth 
for  the  fascinations  of  love.  But  he  did  have  a  sagacious  esti- 
mate of  the  scientific  capacity  of  art,  and  obtained  in  it  as  pro- 
found a  mastery  over  form  as  Titian  over  color.  His  knowl- 
edge being  complete  and  thorough,  no  one  could  better  direct 
its  powers  to  a  perfect  delineation  of  an  historical  or  illus- 
trative composition,  and  the  acute  development  of  individual 
character  in  a  harmonious  unity  of  feeling  and  action  with  his 
central  motive.  He  did  this,  not  from  an  inward  creative  cour 
sciousness  of  the  thing  itself,  as  with  men  of  the  Fra  Angelico 
and  Michael  Angelo  stamp,  but  from  observation  and  mental 
analysis  and  synthesis.  The  "  Last  Supper  "  at  Milan  was  as 
masterly  a  specimen  of  scientific  eclecticism  in  art  as  the  re- 
ligious period  produced  ;  indeed,  its  finest.  It  combined  the 
sound  elements  of  Grecian  and  Etruscan  art  into  a  new  and 
original  whole.  Probably  no  artist  of  any  age  ever  produced  a 
work  which,  in  comparison  with  existing  examples,  so  nearly 


84 


CHRISTIAN  MYTHOLOGY. 


carried  art  at  one  effort  to  perfection  in  design,  composition, 
and  character.  Unfortunately,  owing  to  the  mistaken  choice  of 
wall-surface  and  injudicious  use  of  vehicles,  its  consummate  ex- 
cellence can  only  be  suggested  by  mutilated  remains  and  mod- 
ern engravings.  Whether  in  its  prime  it  had  the  same  power 
to  touch  the  heart  that  it  has  ever  had  to  interest  the  intellect, 
the  world  now  can  never  know.  It  is  sad  to  find  that  the 
subtle  touches  which  bestow  on  fine  works  their  greatest  merit, 
which  best  indicate  the  animating  thought,  and  confer  a  claim  to 
immortality,  are  those  which  jealous  Time  most  quickly  destroys. 
These  tiny  signs  of  sounds  which  tell  the  reader  this,  have  more 
power  to  preserve  and  perpetuate  the  soul  of  things  than  all 
the  pictorial  and  plastic  art  the  world  has  ever  seen  or  will  see ; 
for  they  convey  the  abstract  idea  direct  to  the  imagination,  which^ 
forms  out  of  its  own  boundless  idealism,  untrammelled  by  limi- 
tations of  material,  a  more  complete  picture  than  any  made  up 
from  resisting  matter. 

I  apply  the  term  mythology  to  Christianity  in  no 
mythology,  invidious  scuse,  but  as  I  would  if  discussing,  with  an 
Athenian  of  the  time  of  Pericles,  the  causes  which 
led  to  the  making  carved  images  of  his  national  deities  and 
their  idolatrous  worship  ;  also  the  origin  of  the  extravagant  and 
often  immoral  fables  which  had  so  obscured  the  purer  religious 
notions  of  his  ancestors.  Looking  back  on  the  objective  effect 
of  religion  on  the  minds  of  those  races  most  under  the  influence 
of  the  art  of  Christianity,  I  find  a  condition  of  things  not  un- 
like to  paganism.  Image-worship  has  a  natural  sequence  of 
rites  as  well  as  fellowship  of  ideas  in  all  times.  The  present 
fashion  is  to  adore  elfiojies  of  the  Madonna  and  the  crucifix, 
keeping  lamps  ever  burning  before  them.  In  the  fifth  century 
the  popular  idol  worshipped  in  this  way  was  that  wretched  fa- 
natic, St.  Simone,  the  original  pillar  saint,  whose  statuettes  were 
everywhere  to  be  seen,  just  as  a  few  centuries  previous  were 
those  of  the  excellent  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  was  likewise  wor- 
shipped as  a  household  deity.  The  adoration  paid  the  filthy 
saint  is  only  one  of  many  instances  of  the  silliness  of  mankind  in 
worshipping  those  who  look  contemptuously  down  on  them, 
noticing  the  crowd  only  to  accept  gifts  and  homage,  in  return  void- 
ing their  excrements  on  the  heads  below,  morally  and  not  un- 
seldom,  as  with  St.  Simone,  actually.  A  fakir  gazes  at  his 
navel  until  he  sees  God  in  it,  and  the  stupid  multitude  take  him 
at  his  word.    So,  too,  do  tyrants  of  the  "  divine  right  "  stamp. 


IDOLATROUS  ART. 


85 


Lustily  claiming  themselves  to  be  anointed  of  divinity,  the 
mean-hearted  sycophants  around  them,  for  wages  in  kind,  shout 
amen,  and  the  dirty  lie  gets  imposed  on  the  world  as  a  glorious 
fact. 

There  has  been  a  constant  disposition  to  multiply  material 
objects  of  worship,  to  substitute  marvellous  stories  for  simple 
truths,  to  encourage  popular  superstition  instead  of  popular  edu- 
cation, and  to  make  spirituality  in  faith  give  way  to  abject  idol- 
atry. Nothing  remains  long  sacred  to  the  ignorant,  that  is  not 
invested  with  the  mysterious  or  unintelligible.  So-called  miracles 
are  the  only  accepted  divine  revelations.  Crucifixes  walk,  fly, 
move.  Pictures  have  tongues.  Sometimes  they  wink  in  appro- 
bation ;  at  others  they  vent  their  griefs  in  tears.  Decapitated 
saints  wander  about  with  their  heads  under  their  arms.  Pagan 
fraud  and  credulity  find  Christian  imitators.  Finally  no  story 
is  too  incredible,  and  no  claim  too  preposterous,  if  the  Deity  be 
invoked  to  sustain  it.  Doubtless  much  of  the  degradation  of 
religion  was  owing  to  the  literal  interpretation  by  the  common 
mind  of  the  coarser  symbolisms  of  faith,  and  rude  illustrations 
of  art  of  the  questionable  traditions  of  the  Church.  The  artist 
or  even  the  priest  may  have  meant  one  thing,  and  the  crowd 
taken  it  for  another.  One  fact,  however,  is  apparent.  The 
Church  was  more  solicitous  to  drive  people  into  its  fold  than  to 
enlighten  them  afterwards.  But  I  must  exonerate  the  high  art 
of  this  period,  both  from  a  disposition  or  tendency  to  misdirect 
the  public  faith.  Its  appeal  was  either  to  the  spiritual  or  intel- 
lectual faculties.  Much  instruction  and  happiness  came  of  it ; 
much  pious  consolation  too,  undefiled  by  idolatrous  error. 
Neither  peasant  nor  prince  was  ever  tempted  to  worship  a  statue 
of  Michael  Angelo,  or  a  picture  of  Raphael ;  not  even  I  think 
one  of  Civitali  or  of  Giotto.  Real  genius  escapes  this  desecra- 
tion. The  art  that  was  and  continues  to  be  worshipped  is  of 
the  most  wretched  quality,  on  a  par  with  the  minds  of  those  on 
whom  the  Church  still  imposes  it.  A  similar  distinction  be- 
tween the  effects  of  true  and  false  art  must  have  obtained  in 
Greece.  While  the  Phidian  statues  were  objects  of  wonder 
and  admiration  to  the  whole  heathen  world  for  their  artistic 
merits,  the  idols  of  the  people  were  of  a  different  pattern.  Sacri- 
fices were  performed  in  the  open  air,  that  their  incense  might 
rise  unobstructed  to  the  Unseen,  whose  images  the  temples 
sheltered.  But  as  the  lust  of  power  is  common  to  all  classes, 
I  see  no  reason  to  think  that  the  pagan  priesthood  in  their 


8) 


THE  GREAT  MYSTERY. 


generations  did  any  more  to  discourage  the  disposition  to  idol- 
atry of  the  masses  than  has  the  papal  clergy  thus  far  in  theirs. 
In  either  case  the  original  conception  of  the  object  of  art  con- 
secrated to  religion  could  not  have  been  unknown  to  them  ;  but 
history  has  yet  to  show  an  established  church  sufficiently  disin- 
terested to  interpret  truly  to  the  world  at  large  the  word  or 
thing  which  embodies  the  essence  of  the  Master's  teaching,  if  it 
conflict  with  its  vested  interests  or  transmitted  prerogatives. 

The  mental  infirmity  which  leads  to  multiplying  intermedia- 
tory  divinities  or  intercessors  between  man  and  God,  and  of 
late  in  the  Roman  Church  between  him  and  the  "Son,"  with  a 
decided  inclination  at  the  present  time  to  make  the  "  Mother  of 
God  "  the  final  source  of  consolation  and  appeal,  is  common  to 
our  race.  It  has  been  my  lot  to  pass  several  years  among  the 
Extremes  primitive  Polynesian  tribes,  and  to  have  seen  some.- 
Zationand'  thing  of  the  American  Indians.  I  find  the  same 
barbarism.  mental  phenomena  in  respect  to  faith  and  its  influence 
on  art  in  the  extremes  of  barbarisms  as  in  the  matured  civiliza- 
tions of  Europe,  which  in  their  turn  are  paralleled  in  the  expe- 
riences of  the  rudest  and  most  cultured  peoples  of  antiquity. 
History  invariably  discloses  a  period  in  the  annals  of  every  race 
when  the  conceptions  of  a  Supreme  Being  were  comparatively 
simple  and  spiritual.  If  I  may  so  express  it,  the  first  mental 
instinct  is  to  "  feel  after  "  the  great  central  truth  of  a  universal 
Creator,  whose  attributes  cannot  be  fittingly  personified  under 
any  form  the  mind  is  capable  of  conceiving.  But  as  time  rolls 
on,  and  men's  desires  take  more  material  shapes,  this  great  Mys- 
tery becomes  intolerable.  God  remains  too  far  off,  too  little  dis- 
posed or  capable  of  protecting  them.  "  I  Am  "  is  too  abstract 
an  idea  for  the  mind's  childhobd.  It  does  only  for  its  unques- 
tioning infancy  or  its  complete  maturity.  In  the  interval  or 
its  transition  state  from  instinctive  faith  to  confirmatory  reason, 
there  arises  a  desire  to  reduce  Divinity  to  its  own  loose  standard 
of  thought  and  feeling.  Consequently  the  original  conception  is 
speedily  lost  sight  of  in  the  mazes  of  an  unrestrained  imagina- 
tion. Instead  of  One  God  in  all  things,  a  god  or  devil  is  found 
in  everything.  By  this  familiarizing  process  each  deity  assumes 
a  characteristic  shape  as  the  representative  of  some  natural  ob- 
ject, passion,  or  virtue,  and  is  made  chiefly  in  the  image  of  many- 
sided  man  himself.  This  intense  hunger  for  a  tangible  symbol 
or  absolute  personality  of  his  God  springs  from  weakness  of  un- 
derstanding and  perversity  of  heart  combined.    We  all  have  it 


HOMER  AND  XENOPHANES. 


87 


at  some  age  or  other.  None  have  the  right  to  condemn 
Thomas  for  insisthig  on  the  evidence  of  touch.  Our  God  must 
be  lelt,  to  be  proved.  If  humanity  makes  mistakes  in  its  search, 
we  need  not  treat  it  as  a  deadly  sin.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a 
good  symptom  in  the  soul  that  it  tries  to  find  out  its  Author. 
Still,  the  lower  the  intelligence  the  more  it  clamors  for  the  image 
in  preference  to  the  spirit.  Or  if  forbidden  to  manufacture 
idols,  it  pictures  to  itself  gods  and  devils,  with  congenial  abodes, 
on  a  material  basis. 

The  sages  of  Greece  denounced  Homer  and  Hesiod  for  having 
materialized  and  debased  the  earlier  conceptions  of  divinity. 
Xenophanes,  as  Max  Muller  ^  tells  us,  quoting  the  philosopher, 
was  shocked  to  perceive  that  "  men  seem  to  have  created  their 
gods,  and  to  have  given  them  their  own  minds,  voice,  and  figure." 
Heraclitus,  consideiing  the  Homerian  theology  to  be  flippant 
infidelity,  argued  that  Homer's  poems  should  be  prohibited.  One 
Greek  writer  even  asserts  that  Pythagoras  "  saw  the  soul  of 
Homer  in  the  lower  world  hanging  on  a  tree,  and  surrounded 
by  serpents,  as  a  punishment  for  what  he  had  said  of  the  gods," 
that  is,  for  making  them  so  like  men. 

Swedenborg,  I  believe,  finds  St.  Paul  in  hell  for  similar 
heresy.  The  chief  folly  of  the  classical  mythology  was  in  its  large 
admixture  of  immorality  and  sensualism  ;  that  of  the  Christian  is 
in  its  irrationality  and  asceticism.  Religious  retrogression  was 
the  rule  of  both  periods,  the  Greeks  forgetting  their  original 
monotheistic  conception  of  Zeus,  and  the  Christians  theirs  of 
Jehovah  as  transmitted  by  the  Jews  ;  each  people  relapsing  into 
religious  systems  repugnant  in  form  and  idea  to  the  primitive 
germs  of  faith. 

Christianity  held  true  to  its  earlier  belief  so  long  as  it  was  m 
an  inferior  political  position  ;  but  no  sooner  did  it  rise  to  power 
on  the  ruin  of  paganism,  than  it  followed  in  the  same  theological 
track  which  had  brought  its  predecessor  to  disgrace.  As  has 
been  shown,  the  ruling  motives  of  an  idolatrous  art  spring  from 
the  same  sources  among  all  peoples.  But  the  quality  of  motives 
may  differ  greatly  in  the  same  creed,  as  we  perceive  in  the  ex- 
treme of  Christian  diabolism  on  the  one  side,  and  its  ecstatic 
love  on  the  other.  The  standard  by  which  Christian  art  is  to 
be  tried,  is  more  elevated  in  idea  and  more  pure  in  morals  than 
the  heathen.  It  proposes  a  more  spiritual  basis  of  character, 
more  definite  doctrines,  a  broader,  deeper  humanity,  and  a  loft- 
1  The,  Science  of  Language,  2d  series,  London,  1864,  pp-  386-87. 


88 


VENUS  AND  THE  VIRGIN. 


ier  conception  of  divine  attributes  and  functions.  Therefore 
the  palm  of  superiority  must  be  awarded  to  its  originating 
thought  over  that  of  all  others. 

This  truth  is  clearly  shown  in  the  difference  between  the 
pagan  and  Christian  conception  of  the  goddess  women,  Venus 
and  the  Virgin  Mother,  as  the  supreme  idealization  of  each  in 
their  efforts  to  exalt  the  sex,  both  exercising  a  profound  in- 
fluence over  their  respective  religions  ;  the  one  the  embodiment 
of  physical  loveliness,  the  other  of  spiritual  graces.  The  tend- 
ency of  the  former  was  to  keep  woman  the  prey  of  man's  pas- 
sions, or  at  the  best  to  esteem  her  as  the  sensual  reward  of  his 
heroisms  and  the  incarnation  of  his  dreams  of  beauty.  Although 
the  latter  in  its  blind  devotion,  also  exalted  her  person  to  the 
level  of  Divinity,  the  belief  was  of  great  service  to  civilization 
by  lifting  woman  out  of  sensualism,  and  making  her  coequal 
with  man,  morally  and  intellectually. 

Can  as  much  excellence  be  claimed  for  the  executive  skill  of 
Christian  art  as  for  that  of  paganism  ?  This  is  a  question  each 
student  will  decide  for  himself.  I  have  already  pointed  out  some 
of  the  essential  merits  of  the  different  styles  under  review.  We 
might  indefinitely  prolong  the  comparison.  Among  the  minor 
forms,  Genii  can  be  contrasted  with  Angels  ;  Fames  and  Victories 
with  Cherubim  and  Seraphim ;  Furies,  Fates,  and  Gorgons 
with  Deaths,  Devils,  and  Demons  ;  Muses,  Nymphs,  Fauns,  and 
Graces  with  the  St.  Cecilias,  St.  Margarets,  St.  Catherines,  or 
like  impersonations  of  Christian  virtues  and  accomplishments. 
After  the  same  manner  we  may  also  test  the  ideal  prophets, 
apostles,  and  saints  by  the  side  of  the  heroes  and  demigods,  and 
gradually  ascend  in  hierarchal  rank  until  the  loftiest  creations 
of  either  faith  are  put  in  juxtaposition.  Tiie  "  St.  George  "  of 
Donatello  may  challenge  comparison  with  the  "  Apollo  de 
Belvidere  "  or  the  Ludovisian  "  Mars  "  ;  the  Madonnas  or  Christ 
of  Michael  Angelo  with  a  Minerva  or  Juno  of  the  school  of 
Phidias ;  Venus  de  Milo  or  the  Dying  Gladiator ;  a  Hercules 
with  a  St.  Christopher ;  Castor  and  Pollux  with  Saints  Damian 
and  Cosmas ;  the  "  Modesty "  of  the  Vatican  with  a  Santa 
Susana ;  an  Antinoiis  with  a  St.  Sebastian  ;  in  fine,  the  entire 
circle  of  figure  sculpture  of  pagan  with  later  times.  I  wish  we 
could  extend  the  contest  to  painting,  that  we  might  put  similarly 
on  trial  those  mighty  creations  of  Michael  Aiigelo's  brush,  the 
Prophets  and  Sibyls  of  the  Sistine,  the  luminous,  etherealized 
inventions  of  Correggio,  and  the  no  less  distinguished  works  of 


THE  ALMIGHTY  IN  ART. 


89 


Raphael  and  Titian,  with  the  noblest  productions  of  the  Grecian 
painters.  They  worked  on  a  lower  level  of  art-motive  ;  but  as 
in  sculpture,  they  doubtless  reached  a  higher  point  of  executive 
skill  than  their  rivals  yet  have.  The  Christian  artist  still  has 
his  greatest  triumph  to  win  in  raising  his  work  to  the  height  of 
his  spiritual  standard. 

His  higiiest  effort  is  to  represent  the  person  of  the  tik  Messiah 
Messiah,  to  personify  the  Almighty,  and  to  depict  ^fgi^,l^y^af^''' 
Heaven.  Michael  Angelo's  well  known  "  Christ  sus-  types  in  An. 
taining  his  Cross  "  is  decidedly  pagan  in  style,  with  no  sentiment 
indicative  of  the  subject.  It  is  simply  a  well  executed  statue  of 
a  muscular  model.  The  colossal  "  Christ "  of  Teneraui  at  St. 
Peter's  is  even  less  successful.  Unlike  the  preceding,  it  is 
draped.  He  is  represented  in  the  act  of  blessing  with  uplifted 
hands,  after  the  manner  of  the  popes,  for  one  of  whose  ponder- 
ous figures,  as  seen  on  their  monuments,  this  Christ  might  pass. 
How  the  sculptor  of  the  "  Descent  from  the  Cross"  in  the  Tor- 
Ionia  Chapel  of  the  Lateran  and  the  "Angel"  of  the  Minerva, 
should  be  so  faulty  in  his  conception  of  the  second  person  of  the 
Trinity,  is  surprising.  As  it  is  less  difficult  to  treat  this  motive 
from  its  purely  human  aspect,  we  have  both  in  sculpture  and 
painting  masterly  examples,  chiefly  of  anatomical  expression 
and  beautiful  sentiment,  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  or  nailed  to  the 
cross.  But  Christ  has  yet  to  be  adequately  represented  in  his 
office  of  Divine  Judge,  or  as  welcoming  the  redeemed  into  his 
Father's  kingdom.  Orgagna  and  his  school  represent  him  as  a 
consuming  wrath,  hurling  sinners  to  the  destruction  prepared  for 
them  fr-om  the  beginning.  A  few,  following  after  Fra  Angelico, 
and  Sano  di  Pietro  in  their  enchanting  compositions  of  the 
"  Coronation  of  the  Virgin,"  seek  to  exhibit  the  Saviour  in  his 
aspect  of  triumphant  love;  but  even  with  them,  although  the 
countenance  of  Christ  is  radiant  with  the  joy  of  his  gracious  act, 
yet  the  real  majesty  of  heaven  is  above  their  reach.  If,  then, 
it  is  so  difficult  to  realize  the  divine  in  man,  it  seems  a  hopeless, 
If  not  a  sacrilegious  task,  to  attempt  the  Almighty.  Sculpture 
wisely  abstains,  except  in  relief  or  in  a  minor  way,  as  in  the 
Lucca  della  Robbia  ware.  The  coarse  figures  of  the  early  mo- 
saicists,  worthy  of  their  barbarous  period,  are  as  childish  in  con- 
ception as  they  are  rude  in  execution.  Looking  down  from 
empyrean  vaults,  glowing  with  gems  and  radiant  with  gold,  their 
lofty  vastness  gives  to  them  a  distinctive  majesty,  leavened  with 
awe.    When  we  reflect  how  common  this  motive  is  in  painting,  it 


90 


GRECIAN  ZEUS  OR  JUPITER. 


really  seems  that  some  other  reason  than  a  disinclination  to 
attempt  it  on  account  of  religious  scruples,  must  have  influenced 
the  sculptors  of  every  epoch,  especially  as  there  were  medi- 
ums within  their  control,  such  as  pure  marble,  the  fittest  thing 
for  spiritual  expression,  and  granites,  jaspers,  porphyries,  and 
other  adamantine  rocks,  particularly  adapted,  as  the  art  of 
Egypt  shows,  to  suggest  supernal  power.  Why  is  it  that  the 
religious  mind  looks  with  complacency  on  pictures  of  God,  and 
yet  shudders  at  the  thought  of  statues  of  Him  ?  Is  it  an  in- 
stinctive homage  of  the  soul  to  a  superior  capacity  in  sculpture 
to  incarnate  the  spiritual  essence  of  an  abstract  idea  whose 
very  name  must  not  be  lightly  spoken  ? 

Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  certain  it  is  that  pictures  of  the 
Almighty,  almost  always  in  a  realistic  sense  as  an  old  man, 
rarely  as  a  symbol,  are  common.  They  are  never,  however, 
made  objects  of  worship,  but  are  in  general  illustrative  of  sacred 
history,  or  accessories  in  dogmatic  or  devotional  compositions. 
Here  again  is  another  anomaly  of  the  human  character.  Pictures 
of  the  only  Being  that  revelation  commands  man  to  worship 
are  precisely  those  that  under  no  circumstances  do  they  wor- 
ship, even  in  a  representative  sense  ;  while  those  of  men,  like 
ourselves,  whom  we  are  expressly  forbidden  to  adore,  freely  re- 
ceive the  adoration  of  the  multitude  of  Roman  Catholics.^ 

^sthetically  viewed,  the  Grecian  Zeus  or  Roman  Jupiter  is 
a  superior  conception  of  the  ordinary  pictorial  representation  of 
the  Supreme  God  of  the  Christians.  Jupiter  is  the  climax  of 
man  ;  the  human  being  perfected  and  incapable  of  change ;  al- 
ways in  the  maturity  of  immortal  power,  wisdom,  and  beauty  ; 
serene  and  passionless,  yet  containing  all  passion  ;  in  short,  the 
ideal  man.  Misled,  perhaps,  too  much  by  the  literal  rendering 
of  "  Our  Father,"  in  the  light  of  the  "  Ancient  of  Days,"  in  itself 
the  most  sublime  of  conceptions  of  divinity,  the  artists  of  Chris- 
tianity, from  the  Byzantines  down  to  our  times,  portray  God 
with  the  material  tokens  of  age ;  old  in  the  sense  of  time  and 
paternity  ;  sometimes  benevolent  and  sometimes  angry  ;  majestic 
and  venerable  always,  but  more  with  the  appearance  of  a  created 
being  than  of  a  Being  that  creates  all  things  himself. 

Can  art  suggest  this  ?    Raphael's  "  Almighty,"  in  his  Bible 

1  Paintings  of  the  Almighty  were  not  common  before  the  fourteenth  century. 
To  the  populace  they  symbolized  rank  and  greatness,  and  God  was  associated 
in  their  minds,  and  indeed  often  represented  as  a  Pope,  Emperor,  or  King, 
but  the  artistic  notion  was  that  of  an  aged  and  powerful  human  being. 


GENIUS  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


91 


Stories  of  the  Vatican,  ordering  creation  to  appear,  is  ridiculous 
in  action  and  conception.  Blake  succeeds  better  in  his  render- 
ing of  the  creative  power  under  the  usual  form  of  age.  His  con- 
ception is  majestic  and  dignified.  But  Michael  Angelo  in  his 
Sistine  "  Creation  of  Adam  "  reaches  the  actual  sublime  in  force 
of  design  as  well  as  sentiment,  in  his  figure  of  the  Creator.  He 
makes  a  being  over  whom  time  has  no  jDOwer  ;  ever  strong,  ever 
mature,  ever  self-existent,  as  he  sweeps  through  the  universe  by 
the  action  of  his  will ;  merely  touching  the  dust  of  the  earth 
with  the  tip  of  his  finger  and  lo,  Adam  ! 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  paintings  on  the  ceiling  of  the 
Sistine  can  be  seen  only  by  lying  flat  on  the  back,  as  Michael 
Angelo  did  with  the  paint  dripping  on  his  face  when  he  painted 
them ;  a  position  not  always  attainable  or  favorable  to  study 
when  attained.^  Unless  the  Sistine  frescoes  be  thoroughly  exam- 
ined, no  adequate  conception  of  the  genius  of  their  author  can 
be  formed.  The  power  that  conceived  and  placed  them  there 
stands  in  the  annals  of  art  solitary  and  alone.  Its  force  of  de- 
sign, sublimity  of  originating  idea,  and  interpenetration  into  the 
prophetic  mysteries  of  man's  religious  being,  is  as  if  it  had  been 
let  into  the  secrets  of  the  Almighty  by  a  sympathetic  vision 
which  compasses  the  will  of  the  Creator,  realizing  to  human  eyes 
without  sacrilegious  shock  the  visible  presence  of  Him  who  made 
man  in  his  own  likeness,  and  is  equally  conscious  of  the  attributes 
and  destinies  of  the  beings  He  has  created.  Phidias  doubtless 
surpassed  Michael  Angelo  in  anatomical  idealism  and  repose, 
but  not  in  majesty  of  movement  and  depth  of  meaning.  A  pro- 
found consciousness  of  the  required  spectacle  and  character  passes 
as  by  magic  into  Michael  Angelo's  brush.  His  work  debars  all 
ordinary  admiration  or  dislike.  Either  it  rises  so  far  above  the 
comprehension  of  the  spectator  as  to  be  repulsive  and  unintelli- 
gible, or  else  it  lifts  him  into  its  own  transcendent  worlds,  dis- 
closing a  new  sense  of  the  capacity  of  art  to  give  and  of  his 
own  soul  to  receive. 

This  intense  power  comes  of  the  scope  Michael  Angelo  took 
in  realizing  his  conceptions  untrammelled  by  the  aesthetic  limita- 
tions of  Greek  art.    Like  Nature  herself,  he  has  not  only  the 

1  Here  I  would  observe  that  they  conclusively  demonstrate  that  his  capacity 
of  color,  in  which  he  is  popularly  held  to  be  deficient,  was  not  inferior  to  his  de- 
sign. Their  large  harmony,  richness,  and  breadth  of  tone,  quite  justify  his  im- 
patience at  and  disregard  of  easel  work. 


92 


GENIUS  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


beautiful  but  something  of  higher  import  to  reveal.  He  must 
put  the  souls  of  things  into  shapes  that  most  truthfully  and 
completely  express  their  vital  presence.  His  human  ideal  rises 
higher  than  sensuous  perfection  ;  just  as  his  composition  was 
based  on  laws  that  refused  to  be  subservient  to  mere  rules  of 
geometrical  distribution,  mathematical  regularity  of  lines,  and 
conventional  unity  of  design.  With  him  each  being  is  an  in- 
dividual unit,  having  a  part  to  execute  characteristic  of  his  cause 
of  existence.  Each  is  complete  alone  ;  an  absolute  idea  and 
identity,  worthily  united  when  needful  to  others  equally  self-con- 
scious and  independent  in  a  common  motive.  The  sibyls  and 
prophets  impress  by  their  supernal  functions,  while  Adam  and 
Eve  are  the  embodiment  of  manly  and  womanly  beauty ;  which 
though  consummate  is  made  secondary  to  their  characters  in  the 
momentous  episodes  of  their  lives.  Razzi's  "  Eve  "  in  the  fresco 
of  the  "  Descent  of  Christ  into  Limbo,"  in  the  Academy  of  Siena, 
is  a  singularly  pure  and  graceful  nude  woman,  with  a  delicate 
beauty,  heightened  by  a  sad  memory  of  the  misery  her  error 
caused  the  world.  But  Michael  Angelo's  "  Eve  "  is  the  hale, 
handsome  mother  of  mankind  in  the  bright  morn  of  her  exist- 
ence, feeling  the  strong,  inrushing  tide  of  life,  direct  from  God's 
own  breath,  swelling  her  veins. 

Michael  Angelo  never  shrank  from  any  common  truth  requisite 
to  the  end  in  view.  Hence  he  does  not  conceal  clumsy  strength 
of  youthful  figure,  marks  of  age,  or  soften  violence  of  action,  if 
they  enter  at  all  into  his  tnotives.  He,  however,  could  make 
appear  natural  and  decorous  what  an  inferior  hand  would  render 
absurd  or  exaggerated.  Who  but  he  could  place  a  colossal 
woman  nearly  naked  astride  of  a  revolving  wheel,  as  is  his  For- 
tune, with  such  combined  dignity,  elegance  of  figure,  and  beauty 
of  symbolism  ;  its  realistic  impossibility  disguised  in  sheer  art 
skill ! 

The  Greek  artist  strove  in  his  ideal  for  a  generic  type  of 
beauty  which,  being  perfect,  must  be  immortal.  This  gave  a  con- 
ventional sameness  to  his  figures.  The  great  Italians,  particu- 
larly Michael  Angelo,  reserved  their  power  more  for  idealism  of 
character  than  of  form.  One  of  his  sonnets  finely  expresses  the 
spiritual  secret  of  his  superiority  as  man  and  artist :  — 

"  As  when,  a  lady  mine,  with  chiselled  touch, 
The  stone  unhewn  and  cold 
Becomes  a  living  mould, 


SONNET  OF  MICHAEL  ANGELO. 


The  more  the  marble  wastes,  the  more  the  statue 

So  if  the  working  in  my  soul  be  such 

That  good  is  but  evolved  by  Time's  dread  blows, 

The  vile  shell,  day  by  day, 

Falls  like  superfluous  flesh  away. 
0  take  whatever  bonds  my  spirit  knows 

And  reason,  virtue,  power,  within  me  lay." 


CHAPTER  V. 


ARCHITECTURE. 

AN  has  no  precise  patterns  for  his  architecture,  as  he 
has  for  paintini^  and  sculpture.  The  cave  is  his  sole 
model  of  a  house  or  temple,  and  served  as  both  for 
an  indefinite  period.  We  can,  therefore,  estimate 
the  progress  he  has  made  in  this  direction  by  the 
distance  between  his  primeval  rock-lair  and  the  Parthenon, 
Alhambra,  or  Westminster  Abbey.  Great  as  this  is,  these  edifices 
are  not  the  finalities  of  his  creative  energies,  but  only  hints  of 
his  power  in  reserve. 

The  culmination  of  plastic  art  is  architecture.  Painting  and 
sculpture  by  themselves  address  us  more  familiarly  as  individuals  : 
architecture,  which  includes  both,  in  a  corporate  sense  as  a 
ruling  mind,  representing  ideas  or  organic  form  in  the  whole. 
As  with  the  minor  forms  of  art,  rightly  to  interpret  it,  we  must 
put  ourselves  in  sympathy  with  its  life.  If  we  do  not  receive 
truth  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  given,  it  becomes  a  source  of 
error.  In  art  the  vital  thought  is  its  life-blood.  Mistakes  arise 
from  the  different  acceptation  of  things  by  diverse  temperaments 
and  intelligence.  To  some  persons  a  lamb  has  no  other  asso- 
ciation than  mint  sauce ;  with  others  it  is  the  incarnation  of  in- 
nocence ;  while  a  select  few  see  in  it  a  correspondence  with  ab- 
struse dogma.  So  a  pigeon  to  one  mind  symbolizes  the  spirit 
of  God;  to  another  it  suggests  a  pie.  If  a  priest  administer 
bread  and  wine  in  a  church,  they  are  received  with  reverential 
awe  as  the  body  of  the  Son  of  God;  but  partaken  elsewhere  they 
are  simple  viands.  The  essential  difference  of  things,  therefore, 
lies  in  ourselves.  Every  distinction  is  true  in  itself,  but  all  dis- 
tinctions cannot  be  true  at  the  same  moment  to  ourselves.  As 
the  animal  or  intellectual  life  predominates  we  receive  in  kind  ; 
so  that  the  same  object  may  be  a  stone  of  offence  to  one,  science 
to  another,  beauty  to  a  third,  and  religion  to  the  spiritual-minded. 

Architecture  is  comprehensive  in  the  same  sense  as  Nature. 
Indeed  it  is  the  material  expression  of  the  character  of  man,  as 
nature  is  of  the  mind  of  its  Author.    It  first  impresses  us  as 


ARCHITECTURE  LIKE  NATURE. 


95 


a  great  whole,  after  the  manner  of  the  landscape.  The  naked 
building  is  its  anatomy  or  geological  structure  deter-  Architecture 
mined  by  science.  Art  clothes  it,  as  vegetation  adorns  ""^^Hf^^'^' 
the  earth  with  sensuous  beauty  and  spiritual  sig^ifi-  ^^J^JJJ^^^. 
cance.  Like  the  structure  of  the  globe  itself,  architec-  of  the  ArcU- 
ture  exhibits  infinite  variety  of  organic  form  and  color, 
but  refers  all  to  a  common  cause.  By  its  means  man  has  ample 
scope  for  the  development  of  his  creative  faculties,  at  will  trans- 
muting rude  matter  into  beautiful  shape.  Hence  the  functions 
of  the  true  architect  are  among  the  highest  that  can  be  bestowed 
on  a  human  being.  His  responsibilities  are  as  much  greater 
than  those  of  the  common  artist  as  his  field  is  more  extended, 
his  work  more  durable,  and  its  uses  and  influence  more  widely 
diffused.  The  greatness  of  the  "old  masters,"  is  greatest  in 
architecture.  Witness  Giotto,  Orgagna,  Raphael,  and  Michael 
Angelo.  With  such  men,  painting  and  sculpture  partake  of  the 
largeness  of  spirit  of  their  more  comprehensive  function.  Noble 
architecture  affects  the  soul  after  the  manner  of  grand  nature. 
Like  the  varied  moods  of  the  ocean,  mountain,  or  plain  it  thrills 
the  spectator  with  its  own  emotional  life  ;  and  we  become  con- 
scious of  an  illimitable  power  in  the  individual  that  inspires 
us  with  a  more  hopeful  estimate  of  humanity  at  large. 

Nature  bears  toward  God  another  similitude  with  architecture 
to  man.  Both  are  the  material  evolvement  of  a  common  prin- 
ciple of  constructive  will.  Man's  handicraft  grows  out  of  God's 
creation  through  analogy ;  first,  for  use,  secondly,  to  express 
himself.  Nature  is  constantly  changing  its  aspect  towards  man, 
from  the  twofold  operation  of  its  own  self-adjusting  laws,  and 
man's  influence  upon  it.  As  we  see  it,  therefore,  it  is  always  in 
a  transition  state,  not  a  final,  perfect  one,  any  more  than  our 
present  architecture  is  the  climax  of  man's  capacities.  Both  are 
constantly  undergoing  changes,  imposed  on  them  by  their  respec- 
tive governing  forces,  to  adjust  them  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
epoch.  Nature  obeys  the  divine  will  implicitly,  without  choice 
of  its  own.  Inferior  to  man  in  organic  spirit,  it  acts  by  pre- 
scribed laws.  In  this  respect  nature  is  entirely  independent  of 
man.  With  or  without  his  cooperation  vegetation  grows  ;  the 
seasons  keep  their  allotted  time  ;  the  chemistry  of  matter  goes 
on  ;  animal  life  responds  to  its  instincts  ;  the  universe  revolves 
in  its  appointed  orbits,  and  not  a  ray  of  light  misses  its  destined 
goal.  In  fine  all  that  man  sees,  that  is  beyond  his  power  to 
create,  is  both  the  subject  and  object  of  an  unconscious  science, 


96 


WHY  ARCHITECTURE  EXISTS. 


so  profound  in  its  operations,  that  during  his  long  sojourn  upon 
earth,  he  has  detected  only  the  most  sinriple  of  its  laws.  He  can- 
not essentially  change  that  which  God  directly  cares  for.  His 
limits  would  sfeem  to  be  those  of  discovery,  modification,  and  ap- 
plication, in  all  that  relates  to  the  organization  of  matter  itself. 

Perhaps  the  most  precious  discovery  man  has  yet  made,  is 
that  he  is  the  heir  of  nature,  promoted  to  free-will.  The  king- 
dom of  matter  is  given  to  him  for  the  expansion  of  his  faculties, 
and  to  receive  the  stamp  of  his  ideas.  After  endowing  him  with 
mind,  and  the  inestimable  boon  of  liberty  of  choice  between 
good  and  evil,  that  he  might  freely  seek  out  his  own  happiness, 
how  could  God  deny  him  the  mastership  of  the  material  world, 
without  nullifying  his  own  purpose  ?  Therefore  it  is  permitted 
to  him  to  control  matter  to  his  temporary  purposes,  under  re- 
strictions of  organic  law,  equally  applicable  to  his  own  physical 
organization.  At  his  bidding,  light  and  heat  burst  from  the 
cold  rock,  music  issues  from  the  dumb  ore,  luminous  color  from 
the  dark  earth,  and  each  crude  or  shapeless  thing  moulds  itself 
into  an  object  of  use  or  beauty. 

Why  archi-        In  virtue  of  this  function  architecture  exists.  For 

tccture  ex-  .  ,  ,        ,         ,  .  ^        ,•  i  i 

ists.  material  needs,  the  plamest  building  would  answer. 

But  man  is  not  content  with  simple  or  rude  shelter.  His  rest- 
less mind  must  express  its  spiritual  longings.  The  readiest  way 
is  in  song  ;  the  most  imposing  by  architecture,  which  as  it  richly 
develops,  forms  a  literature  in  stone.  Several  nations  once  prom- 
inent have  left  no  other  traces  of  themselves. 

Overgrown  by  the  dense  forests  of  Central  America,  we  find 
the  architectural  debris  of  peoples  that  had  made  a  considerable 
advance  towards  civilization,  without  intercourse  with  other 
races,  so  far  as  is  known.  Judging  from  the  uncouth  idols 
that  have  been  brought  to  light,  their  religion  must  have  re- 
mained in  the  low  stage  of  fetichism :  or  that  condition  in  which 
men  seek  to  avoid  calamities  by  propitiating  evil  spirits,  having 
greater  faith  in  their  power  of  harm  than  in  the  ability  of  a 
benevolent  deity  to  protect  them.  Their  buildings  are  largely 
ornamented  with  angular  designs,  one  of  which  resembles  the 
well-known  Greek  fret,  which  is  also  found  in  China,  and  seems 
to  be  universal.  But  in  general  they  do  not  rise  above  abor- 
tive attempts  at  beauty,  in  diversifying  broad  surfaces,  with  no 
apparent  intellectual  motive,  and  but  crude  carving  or  modelling. 
aviiization  Civilization  has  no  fixed  standard  or  definable  lim- 
^tandard.      its.    Our  own  is  apt  to  be  taken  as  the  best,  and 


MEXICO  AND  PERU. 


97 


others  judged  in  its  light.  But  the  approved  institution  of 
yesterday,  is  the  confessed  barbarism  of  to-day,  as  we  see  in  the 
fate  of  shivery  in  America ;  and  we  shall  see  in  that  of  other 
ideas  and  customs  which  are  now  respectable.  Human  sacrifices 
were  believed  to  be  the  chief  religious  duty  scarcely  three  cen- 
turies ago  in  Mexico,  whose  civilization,  as  well  as  that  of  Peru, 
was  so  lauded  by  the  followers  of  Cortez  and  Pizarro.  These 
were  unlettered  men,  disposed  to  exaggerate  their  exploits  ;  so  al- 
lowance must  be  made  for  their  statements.  Certainly  the  arch- 
itectural indications  now  remaining  are  very  little,  if  any,  supe- 
rior to  those  of  their  neighbors  in  Yucatan,  Guatemala,  or  further 
south.  Even  the  advanced  races  of  America  were  but  superior 
savages,  with  no  intellectual  cohesion,  advanced  notions  of  relig- 
ion, or  any  gifts  for  the  common  treasury  of  civilization.  The- 
most  interesting  fact  concerning  them,  is  the  pitiful  ending  of 
their  high-sounding  empires,  which  vanished  like  a  dream  before- 
the  assaults  of  a  few  hundred  Europeans.  The  superiority  of 
race,  or  rather  of  the  power  which  a  higher  civilization  has- 
over  a  lower,  was  never  more  conspicuously  shown.  Nothing 
is  left  of  the  art  of  the  subdued  Indians,  except  a  few  specimens- 
of  a  pictorial  language  of  childish  simplicity  of  invention,  gro- 
tesque drawing,  but  brilliant  coloring  and  complex  arrangement ;, 
buildings  of  rude  strength,  with  no  merit  of  design  ;  a  few  roads  ; 
a  clumsy  pottery  of  a  course  texture,  crudely  archaic  silver  or 
gold  images,  and  carvings  or  sculpture  whose  ideal  is  intense 
ugliness  and  distortion  when  based  on  the  human  form,,  and  rude 
simplicity  on  any  other  natural  object.  Yet  I  have  seen  things 
done  by  the  descendants  of  these  aborigines,  which  indicate  artistic 
capacity.  That  light  had  penetrated  the  minds  of  their  ancestors 
is  evident  from  some  of  their  moral  maxims  and  political  axioms^ 
In  their  ornamentation  there  may  be  detected  a  latent  feeling  for 
beauty.  Parts  of  their  work  are  not  much  worse  than  early 
Lombard  carving.  Still  I  cannot  conceive  that  art  has  lost 
more  by  the  disappearance  of  their  architectui-e,  than  has  true 
religion  by  the  destruction  of  their  rites  of  worship.  Cargoes 
of  their  sacred  vessels  were  sent  to  Europe  to  be  melted  into 
coin.  This  was  done  when  the  aristocratic  patronage  of  art 
was  at  its  height.  It  especially  delighted  in  jeweller's  work, 
which  the  skill  of  Cellini  had  made  so  precious.  Yet  of  the 
multitude  of  costly  articles  of  which  the  plunderers  of  Mexico 
and  Peru  stripped  their  victims,  nothing  now  remains.  All  went 
to  the  crucible.  Would  this  have  been  done  if  they  had  had 
7 


98 


CHINA,  JAPAN,  AND  INDIA. 


artistic  value  ?    The  contemporary  art  of  Europe  of  a  similar 

character,  is  preserved  as  national  heir-looms. 

■Albert  But  we  have  an  eye-witness,  than  whom  no  one 

Durer^s  tes-  .  i        •    i  i 

timony.  was  better  qualified  to  judge,  whose  testimony  contra- 
dicts my  conclusion  and  the  evidence  of  what  I  have  myself  seen 
in  the  museums  of  Lima  and  Mexico.  Albert  Durer,  in  the 
winter  of  A.  d.  1520-21,  visited  the  Low  Countries,  and  his  jour-  • 
nal  has  recently  been  published  at  Brussels.  He  writes,  "  I  have 
seen  among  the  curiosities  which  have  been  brought  to  the  king 
(Charles  V.),  from  the  golden  country  (Mexico),  a  sun  of  pure 
gold  a  fathom  in  diameter,  and  a  silver  moon  of  the  same  size.  I 
admired  two  chambers  full  of  all  kinds  of  curiosities  coming  from 
the  same  place :  there  were  arms,  harnesses,  engines  of  war, 
curious  dresses,  litters,and  many  other  things,  after  the  fashion  of 
that  country.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  all  these  objects  are  in- 
finitely more  heautiful  and  rich  than  what  we  have.  They  are 
also  so  precious  that  they  are  esteemed  worth  one  hundred 
thousand  florins.  I  avow  that  nothing  has  ever  excited  my 
curiosity  so  much  as  the  extraordinary  productions,  which  prove 
how  much  the  inhabitants  of  these  distant  countries  possess  an 
inventive  and  ingenious  mind." 

The  architecture  of  China,  Japan,  and  those  races  whose  an- 
cestors were  nomads,  in  general  lightness  of  form  and  material, 
is  but  one  remove  from  the  tent.  Its  lines,  even  in  its  most 
ambitious  attempt,  the  pagoda,  follow  those  of  the  canvas-homes  of 
the  desert,  ever  narrowing  with  a  downward  sweep,  as  if  reluctant 
•to  leave  the  ground.  Ornamentation  is  usually  of  a  grotesque, 
unnatural  design,  in  which  dragons  figure  conspicuously,  and 
seems  intended  to  excite  awe  or  fright  in  the  spectator,  instead 
of  any  pleasurable  emotions.  Several  thousands  of  years  of 
comparative  civilization  in  the  further  Orient  have  failed  to  gen- 
erate any  style  to  which  the  outside  world  attaches  importance, 
or  even  to  vary  the  common  type,  the  novelty  of  whose  fantastic 
aspect  alone  commends  it  to  European  eyes. 

Hindoo  architecture  is  a  capricious  interblending  of  massive 
strength,  feminine  delicacy  of  outlines,  beautiful  details  of  clas- 
sical or  Arab  origin,  and  mazes  of  mystical  sculpture  that  baffle 
description.  It  partakes  of  all  other  styles,  and  is  like  to  none. 
Elaborately  grand  and  imposing,  it  both  fascinates  and  disappoints 
by  its  curious  jumble  of  beauty  and  repulsiveness  in  ornamenta- 
tion, just  as  the  creative  fancy  was  free  to  adopt  its  own  inventions 
or  was  compelled  to  follow  in  the  prescribed  track  of  religious 


EGYPT. 


99 


ideas.  It  marks  the  line  where  the  two  great  currents  of  Orien- 
tal and  Occidental  thought  either  come  into  collision  or  diverge 
as  from  a  common  fountain  on  their  separate  missions  :  the  one 
ever  tending  to  a  materialism  that  runs  into  fetichism  and  the 
other  to  an  intellectualism  that  aspires  to  a  spiritual  cognizance 
of  things,  —  the  diabolism  of  China  opposed  to  the  idealism  of 
Greece,  or  the  deadening  fatalism  of  Mohammedanism  to  the 
hope  of  Christianity. 

These  conflicting  elements  prevent  a  homogeneous  type  of 
architecture,  founded  on  one  manner  of  life  and  belief,  such  as 
that  of  ancient  Egypt.  Here  its  character  is  more  intensely 
metaphysical,  and  its  symbolism  less  grotesquely  varied  and 
fanciful,  less  abnormal  in  imagination,  but  more  grand,  simple, 
and  profound,  without  being  complex  and  horrible  like  the  prim- 
itive Hindoo.  Both  veiled  truth  in  enigma  as  too  sacred 
for  the  profane  mind.  Both  delighted  in  caves,  underground 
structures,  or  gloomily  lighted  edifices  and  vast  sepulchral  monu- 
ments, as  if  the  chief  business  of  man  was  death,  or  he  was  most 
to  be  honored  for  dying.  The  principal  ambition  of  the  power- 
ful would  appear  to  have  been  to  eternize  their  names  in  matter. 
Their  most  durable  monuments  were  built  for  their  embalmed 
corpses,  as  though  all  went  well  with  the  soul  while  the  body  could 
be  kept  from  decomposition.  Temples  and  tombs  are  much  alike 
in  mysterious  awe.  No  doubt  much  of  their  massive  gloom  and 
deep  shadow  came  from  a  natural  desire  to  escape  the  burning 
heat  of  the  climate,  which  could  scarcely  penetrate  their  thick 
sides  and  scanty  openings.  To  enliven  them  it  became  neces- 
sary to  use  bright  colors  and  positive  designs  for  ceilings  and 
walls.  Even  the  immense  columns  which  supported  the  roofs 
and  doorways  were  painted,  history  and  mythology  affording 
the  chief  subject-matter.  Sculpture  and  painting  were  in  use 
only  as  accessories  to  the  architecture  and  rigidly  subordinated 
to  it.  When  we  consider  the  gigantic  scale  of  the  combined 
whole,  its  unity  of  purpose  and  execution,  its  striking  appeal  to 
the  mystical  and  mysterious,  the  deep  significance  it  attached  to 
death,  and  its  own  suggestiveness  of  immutable,  magnificent 
power,  removed  so  far  beyond  the  ordinary  standard  of  men,  is 
it  matter  of  wonder  that  it  overawed  and  confused  the  common 
mind,  and  helped  keep  the  Egyptian  fellah  the  helpless  slave 
of  his  rulers  ? 

The  shadow  of  that  deathward  architecture  still  broods  along 
the  Nile.    As  thought  goes  back  to  the  first  stages  of  man's  his- 


100 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  IN  ARCHITECTURE. 


tory,  all  ages  seem  to  roll  into  one  and  the  past  and  present  be- 
come identical.  No  idea  has  issued  from  the  human  brain,  no 
deed  has  sprung  from  the  human  hand,  but  still  exists  in  vital 
force.  Somewhere  in  this  vast  universe  there  must  be  congenial 
space  and  life  for  every  form  of  existence  which  had  its  origin  on 
our  globe ;  communities  and  persons  at  will  repeating  or  vary- 
ing themselves,  and  endowed  with  individuality  as  immortal  as 
mind  itself.  The  songs  and  sighs  that  are  entombed  in  the 
monuments  of  the  past  are  living  contemporaneous  voices  appeal- 
ing for  sympathy  or  help.  As  we  truly  decide  on  right  or 
wrong  we  gladden  the  universal  heart  and  speed  it  on  its  way  re- 
joicing. But  if  we  judge  contrary  to  love  and  justice  the  welfare 
of  all  souls,  past  and  present,  is  impeded.  This  magnetic  chain 
of  sympathy  which  links  together  all  sentient  beings  is  a  solemn 
claim  on  our  moral  sense,  for  it  shows  us  that  the  responsibility 
which  attaches  to  every  word  or  action  is  limited  neither  by  time 
nor  space.  Good  and  evil  once  set  in  motion  labor  forever  in 
their  respective  spheres.  Brahma,  Confucius,  Moses,  Mohammed, 
or  Jesus,  pass  out  of  mortal  sight,  but  their  words  remain  flesh 
while  the  world  lasts,  deciding  here  and  hereafter  the  lot  of 
countless  multitudes.  Monuments  that  only  record  how  man 
darkened  the  understanding  of  his  brother,  shutting  him  out 
from  the  light  of  human  love  and  spiritual  hope,  wasting  the 
temple  of  his  body  in  base  toils  born  of  pride,  avarice,  or  super- 
stition, oppress  my  spirit  strangely.  Ascending  the  pyramid 
I  do  not  tread  on  dumb  stones  but  on  souls  of  still  fruitlessly 
toiling  fellow-beings,  bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my  flesh. 
Each  step  awakens  the  groan  of  some  poor  wretch  whose  sad 
life  was  shaped  out  for  him  by  no  choice  of  his  own.  He  cries, 
"  Come  and  help  us,  for  we  still  suffer."  And  believe  me,  as  we 
cultivate  in  ourselves  nobler  uses  of  life  so  shall  the  condition  of 
entire  humanity  be  raised.  Architecture  has  more  to  answer 
for  morally  than  all  other  art.  The  minor  arts  being  in  the 
main  the  results  of  individual  taste  and  election,  their  good  or 
evil  is  comparatively  restricted.  But  the  free  will  of  the  people 
in  no  age  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  prevailing  types  or  de- 
ciding the  special  purposes  of  public  edifices.  There  will  be  no 
complete,  final  architecture,  until  the  popular  mind  is  sufficiently 
instructed  and  its  feeling  sufficiently  spiritualized  to  evolve  its 
forms  in  a  spontaneous  manner  out  of  its  enlarged  circle  of 
needs  and  aspirations.  The  freer  the  thought,  and  the  more 
intense  the  enthusiasm  or  discontent  of  a  race  in  striving  for 


ASSYRIA. 


101 


its  ideal,  the  nearer  it  comes  to  realizing  the  essential  truth  of 
the  above  assertion.  Grecian  and  Gothic  architecture,  and  in 
some  respects  the  Arab,  are  genuine  approaches  to  wholesome 
types.  AH  others  have  been  imposed  by  the  few  on  the  many, 
paid  for  by  forced  taxation,  direct  robbery,  or  stolen  labor ;  had 
in  them  no  blessing  for  the  workers  ;  a  curse,  rather ;  or  when 
not  the  direct  curse  of  despotisms  like  those  of  Egypt  and  India, 
the  more  insidious  one  of  sensualisms  and  bigotries  like  those  of 
Louis  XIV.  of  France,  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  petty  tyrants 
of  the  Renaissant  stamp  in  Italy.  There  is  therefore  something 
else  to  be  seen  in  the  architecture  of  the  past  besides  its  aes- 
thetic aspects.  Something  more  than  ponderous  masses,  magic 
light  and  shadow,  gorgeous  ornamentation  and  picturesque  ruin. 
These  are  but  material  effects  talking  the  language  of  romance 
and  illusions.  Look  awhile  on  realities.  The  spirit  of  human- 
ity tells  of  its  long  imprisonment  and  torture  in  these  enchanted 
temples  and  palaces  ;  of  the  wrongs  heaped  on  it  generation 
after  generation,  written  on  the  stony  record  it  was  forced  to 
rear.  It  reveals  the  secret  of  the  Sphinx ;  how  that  common 
humanity  was  reduced  to  the  level  of  the  unreflecting  brute  ; 
until  all  that  was  left  of  it  really  human  was  its  face,  and  that 
not  permitted  to  disclose  the  evil  that  consumed  its  life.  Further, 
it  denounces  Egyptian  art  for  embalming  the  bodies  of  the  dead 
at  the  expense  of  the  souls  of  the  living,  which  were  changed  into 
stones  and  heaped  up  mountain-high  over  them  as  if  to  crush  out 
all  hope  of  a  resurrection  to  a  happier  existence.  In  viewing  it 
or  kindred  work  we  are  forced  either  to  believe  that  men  then 
were  incapable  of  rising  above  the  condition  of  slaves  or  that 
they  were  kept  by  force  in  helpless  ignorance. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  Assyrian  architecture,  as  we  get 
at  its  spirit  from  modern  restoration  of  its  designs,  was  man- 
worship,  with  its  concomitant  principle  of  arbitrary  power.  In 
general  feeling  it  was  not  unlike  the  modern  Palatial  or  second 
stage  of  the  Renaissant  Classical,  being  lordly,  sensual,  and 
vain-glorious,  given  over  to  pomp  and  luxury.  But  its  orna- 
mentation was  more  grand,  while  as  a  whole  there  was  a 
greater  harmony  of  details,  besides  an  originality  of  design  and 
creative  force,  dashed  with  Oriental  mysticism  quite  beyond  that. 
Egyptian  architecture  being  founded  on  religious  feeling,  still 
survives,  appealing  to  the  Invisible.  But  of  that  of  Nineveh, 
devoted  to  the  pride  of  man,  in  his  own  riches  and  power, 
nothing  remains  except  heaps  of  sand  and  ashes  in  which 


102 


GENIUS  OF  THE  JEWISH  PEOPLE. 


were  buried  the  few  fragments  of  grandiose  sculpture  and 
smaller  objects  that  have  lately  found  their  way  into  the  mu- 
seums of  Europe. 

Effect  of  I  once  supposed  that  race,  by  itself,  had  a  decisive 
^dimauon  influence  on  art.  But  a  more  extended  view  leads  me 
to  reject  it  as  of  special  importance.  There  exists 
at  present  a  certain  artistic  inequilibrium  of  development  in  dif- 
ferent nations,  most  prominent  in  architecture,  but  perceptible  in 
every  department,  which  at  first  sight  might  seem  to  indicate 
some  fundamental  cause  in  peoples  themselves.  It  is  however  an 
effect  of  training,  chiefly  religious,  and  the  policy  or  tastes  of  the 
ruling  and  wealthy  classes,  modified  by  the  exigencies  of  climate. 
Recently,  the  genius  of  the  Jewish  race  for  music  has  been  con- 
spicuously manifested.  Yet  the  old  Shemitic  tribes  left  no 
monuments  to  prove  a  capacity  for  art.  Their  artistic  feeling 
found  vent  in  sensuous  or  sublime  poetry,  inspired  by  their 
monotheistic  ideas.  If  we  accept  their  abstract  imagery  and 
spiritual  imaginings,  for  instance  those  of  the  book  of  Job,  in 
the  sense  of  high  art,  as  undoubtedly  it  is,  the  Arab  stands  at 
the  very  head  of  races.  It  was  left  to  those  foreign  in  blood 
and  hostile  in  religion  to  put  their  conceptions  into  plastic  or 
pictorial  form.  Monotheism  held  a  firm,  restrictive  hand  on  the 
materialistic  development  of  art.  By  prohibiting  the  graven 
likeness  of  images  of  the  Supreme,  it  took  away  from  art,  as 
the  public  taste  was  then,  its  only  powerful  incentive.  There 
was  nothing  left  except  decoration.  Architecture  especially, 
was  largely  dependent  on  sculpture,  as  ornamentation,  but  prin- 
cipally for  its  grandest  motive,  as  the  home  of  the  gods.  "While 
polytheistic  nations  erected  innumerable  and  splendid  temples, 
the  monotheistic  Jews  built  only  one,  and  that  rudely  simple, 
if  we  exclude  the  futile  structure  of  the  seceding  tribes ;  and 
their  nomadic  relatives  aspired  to  nothing  more  permanent  than 
a  tent-tabernacle. 

After  the  Jews  lost  their  nationality,  there  was  no  opportu- 
nity for  them  to  develop  an  original  style  of  architecture.  Al- 
though so  tenacious  of  their  religion,  they  readily  accept  the 
civilizations  of  their  adopted  countries  in  other  respects,  excel- 
ling in  finance,  literature,  and  art,  which  proves  that  training, 
not  blood  or  climate,  decides  the  question  as  regards  them. 

The  Turks  are  hostile  to  art,  solely  from  religious  scruples 
hardened  into  fanatical  prejudices,  and  from  the  virtual  prohibi- 
tion of  any  education  that  favors  it.    Yet  the  Saracenic  Arabs 


PRIMITIVE  TYPES. 


103 


and  Spanish  Moors,  in  race  akin  to  the  Jews,  and  holding  to  the 
faith  of  the  Turks,  so  far  overcame  the  sensual  stupor  of  their 
creed  as  to  create  a  style  of  architecture  which,  for  refined 
beauty,  delicate  ornamentation,  sensuous  grace,  and  ethereality 
of  forms  and  hues  is  as  lovely  as  it  is  unique.  Religion  pre- 
scribed the  limits  of  its  decoration,  forbidding  the  introduction 
of  the  human  figure  or  any  realistic  reproduction  of  natural 
forms;  but  this  restriction  operated  as  a  stimulus  to  the  invent- 
ive faculties,  so  that  the  world  is  indebted  to  them  for  its  purest 
and  most  exquisite  varieties  of  architectural  decoration  based  on 
strictly  mathematical  rules,  and  scientific  harmonies  and  con- 
trasts of  color.  Its  general  masses  and  constructive  forms 
were  decided  by  the  conditions  of  climate,  not  plagiarized  as  is 
the  modern  habit  from  other  styles  or  peoples  regardless  of 
their  adaptability  to  new  uses  and  localities. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  religious  idea,  apart  from  dogma,  both 
controls  and  expresses  itself  in  the  highest  forms  of  architec- 
ture, originating  and  developing  whatever  there  is  in  it  most 
beautiful  and  spiritual.  But  this  progress  is  slow  and  fluctu- 
ating. 

Its  earliest  development  partakes  of  man's  prim- 
itive ideas  of  God,  as  a  being  of  boundless  power  ^IZtlTture, 
and  might.  The  ruling  forms  are  ponderous,  out-  ^cydJ^ean 
lasting  all  subsequent  ones  in  which  the  elements  of  ""^'^  ^^J^^' ^ 
assthetic  beauty  or  spiritual  significance  are  introduced. 
Then  mankind  relied  on  physical  strength  to  protect  themselves 
and  to  perpetuate  their  memory,  just  as  they  looked  in  fear 
upward  to  an  omnipotent  strength.  The  times  too  were  un- 
certain and  sanguinary.  Self-defence  in  the  shape  of  impreg- 
nable temple-citadels  was  as  much  a  domestic  necessity  as  iron- 
clads are  now  for  national  independence.  But  those  gigantic 
rock-structures  known  as  the  Cyclopean  and  Pelasgian  styles  of 
architecture,  of  which  there  are  fine  examples  at  Arpino  and 
Alatri  in  Central  Italy,  indicate  something  else  besides  protec- 
tion from  enemies  armed  with  spears  and  arrows.  They  are 
partly  ambitious  attempts  to  define  everlasting  strength  by 
matter,  and  partly  the  results  of  a  senseless  desire  of  exaggera- 
tion common  to  enterprising  races. 

In  massive  strength,  the  early  Doric  architecture  corresponds 
to  the  Egyptian  type.  It  is  however  emancipated  from  sepul- 
chral life  into  outdoor  liberty,  delighting  in  space,  rejoicing  in 
liglit ;  and,  as  at  Paestum,  severely  grand  and  noble,  with  a 


104 


GRECIAN  ARCHITECTURE. 


natural  richness  of  color,  inherent  in  its  material,  heightened 
by  the  caressing  warmth  of  the  atmosphere,  a  background  of 
purple  mountain,  and  a  foreground  of  blue  rippling  sea,  into 
which  the  sun  pours  its  opalescent  splendor. 

Much  of  this  halo  depends  upon  the  isolation  of  the  object. 
The  chief  attraction  of  Grecian  architecture  lies  on  the  outside. 
The  Greeks  were  averse  to  religious  rites  within  dark  and  con- 
fined walls.  Masters  of  aesthetics,  they  knew  how  to  make  an 
effective  tableau  out  of  their  worship,  as  well  as  to  place  their 
temples  in  the  best  positions  to  exhibit  their  serenity,  in  har- 
monious contrast  with  the  variety  and  breadth  of  the  landscape. 
Then  too,  a  classical  temple,  though  originating  in  a  tomb,  was 
the  embryo  palace.^  The  Grecian  temple  was  divested  of  mys- 
tical and  metaphysical  functions,  simplified,  humanized,  made 
intelligible  and  beautiful  throughout,  and  kept  as  a  hospitable 
sanctuary  for  the  gods  when  they  left  Olympus  to  visit  their 
descendants  on  the  earth.  Man  and  deity  both  loved  ,the  open 
air.  Forests,  plains,  and  mountains  were  peopled  with  dignities 
of  every  grade.  Zeus  no  more  lived  in  a  house  made  by  man 
than  Jehovah.  Unlike  the  latter,  he  had  his  rites  performed 
under  the  clear  skies.  Games,  plays,  and  schools  held  to  the 
like  habit.  Thus  it  happened  to  the  Greek  by  a  spontaneous 
association  of  ideas  to  have  a  pantheistic  sympathy  with  the  ex- 
ternal world  and  to  manifest  it  by  outdoor  statues  and  architec- 
ture, subordinating  both  to  nature  at  large,  and  at  the  same 
time  making  them  its  crown  of  beauty. 

Order  is  the  key-note  of  Grecian  architecture.  It  is  strictly 
an  intellectual  aspiration,  founded  on  mathematical  law.  Pro- 
portion, symmetry,  elegance,  finish,  purity  of  material,  simplicity 
of  line,  regularity  of  features,  a  passionless  dignity  of  outlook 
as  of  fulfilled  desire ;  such  are  its  vital  characteristics.  Within 
it  is  cold,  formal,  and  unsatisfying;  without,  beautiful,  majestic; 
if  seen  in  crowded  masses,  flat  and  monotonous.  Its  spiritual 
failure  is  in  its  completeness.  There  is  left  no  suggestion  of  an 
unrealized  idea  to  the  soul.    It  is  a  demonstrated,  intellectual 

1  In  the  infancy  of  the  pagan  civilizations,  men  were  content  to  live  in  huts 
or  incommodious  and  rude  houses,  in  order  to  lodge  their  gods  magnificently. 
The  medioevalists  also,  built  their  cathedrals  on  this  principle  of  self-sacrifice  or 
propitiation.  As  rulers  succeeded  to  the  offices  of  the  gods,  whether  of  Israel, 
Babylon,  Assyria,  Rome,  or  Renaissant  Europe,  the  palace  began  to  take  prece- 
dence in  luxury  and  splendor  of  temple  and  church.  Protestantism  thus  far 
has  had  a  like  effect  in  raising  the  standard  of  domestic  at  the  expense  of  sa- 
cred edifices. 


ROMAN  ARCHITECTURE. 


105 


problem  ;  pleasant  to  understand,  but  pointing  to  nothing  higher 
than  its  own  fulfilment.  Planting  itself  firmly  and  squarely 
on  the  earth,  it  takes  the  imagination  heavenward  by  columns 
so  many  given  feet,  and  by  a  defined  number  of  geometrical 
steps  in  systematic  beauty,  and  then  suddenly  checks  its  flight 
by  heavy  entablature  and  cornice,  cutting  short  the  scientific 
upright,  by  the  equally  scientifically  disposed  horizontal  lines,  as 
having  accomplished  the  purpose  of  its  being.  Its  organic  va- 
riety is  equally  limited  by  rules  from  which  it  can  never  depart 
except  at  the  expense  of  its  special  excellence.  The  grada- 
tions or  alterations  in  details,  by  which  it  passed  from  the  severe 
Doric  to  the  elegant  Corinthian,  and  their  intermediate  stages, 
are  few  and  simple,  marking  the  progress  of  classical  taste  in 
its  exchange  of  the  sublime  for  the  beautiful. 

Rome  organized  a  style  which  admirably  illustrated  Home—Tht 
its  imperial  power.  Retaining  the  beautiful  forms  and 
character  of  details  of  the  Grecian  architecture,  for  the  substruc- 
ture, the  Romans  crowned  it  with  a  miniature  firmament,  whose 
bold  curve,  like  the  vault  of  heaven,  haughtily  symbolized  universal 
dominion.  To  them  we  owe  the  final  development  of  the  arch, 
whether  gracefully  spanning  columns,  tier  upon  tier  in  varied 
orders,  ambitiously  piled  skyward,  as  in  the  Colosseum,  or  ex- 
panded into  one  noble  dome  like  the  Pantheon,  which  incited 
the  greater  marvels  of  Michael  Angelo  and  Brunelleschi.  The 
arch  is  the  fundamental  feature  of  Roman  architecture,  being  to 
it  what  the  spire  is  to  the  Gothic.  Etruria  gave  it  to  Rome  in 
the  first  instance  as  a  simple  principle  of  strength  combined 
with  convenience  in  building,  but  the  Romans  made  it  majestic. 
Possibly  its  final  shape  was  suggested  by  the  Italian  pine,  whose 
tops  are  of  every  degree  of  roundness,  from  the  somewhat  flat- 
tened swell  which  is  copied  in  the  Baths  of  Agrippa  to  the 
conical  rise  of  Santa  Maria  del  Fiore,  at  Florence.  Externally 
the  new  architecture  retained  its  elements  of  Grecian  beauty, 
crowned  and  varied  by  the  distinctive  arch  or  dome,  which  re- 
lieved their  abstract,  intellectual  idealism  by  an  infusion  of  real- 
istic thought,  more  flexible  and  practical  in  its  application  to  the 
ideas  and  uses  of  men  themselves,  apart  from  polytheistic  asso- 
ciations, yet  equally  capable  of  being  consecrated  to  sacred  pur- 
poses. The  sentiment  of  the  universal  pervades  it.  In  the 
earliest  basilicas  we  see  how  readily  and  with  what  slight 
change  its  constructive  qualities  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
Christian  religion,  after  having  done  service  in  pagan  temples, 


106 


ROMAN  STYLE. 


baths,  halls  of  justice,  and  the  forum.  This  is  due  to  its  in- 
herent nobility  of  form  and  simplicity  of  ornamentation,  which 
require  but  suitable  characterization  to  fit  the  edifice  as  a  whole 
for  any  great  purpose.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  it  best  ex- 
presses the  spirituality  of  the  Christian  faith ;  far  from  it.  But 
it  can  be  appropriately  used  for  that  worship,  while  the  pure 
Grecian  temple  has  no  similar  elasticity  of  constructive  func- 
tions. Neither  is  this  better  adapted  for  the  secular  wants  of 
modern  life,  for  everything  is  subordinated  to  external  effect  and 
use.  A  great  step  was  gained  when  not  merely  variety  of  hori- 
zontal line  was  secured  and  indefinite  expansion  of  the  building, 
itself  free  from  monotony  of  masses,  but  the  interior  was  ren- 
dered light  and  cheerful,  and  capable  of  attractive  decoration. 
In  doing  this,  the  Romans  were  faithful  to  their  Etruscan  training 
in  masonry.  They  built  firmly  and  stoutly.  So  strong  is  their 
brick  work,  once  incrusted  with  frailer  and  more  tempting  ma- 
terials for  the  spoiler,  that  it  rivals  the  pyramids  themselves  in 
durability.  Marble  ceilings  and  adamantine  vaults,  of  old  time, 
glowing  in  color,  and  graceful  in  suggestive  designs,  both  invited 
and  confined  the  thought  to  the  interiors  of  edifices,  worldly 
in  character,  elegant  in  adornment,  convenient  and  luxurious, 
according  to  their  purpose,  majestic  in  appearance,  concentrating 
in  themselves  the  ambition  and  glory  of  the  nation,  without  any 
of  that  individuality  of  constructive  expression  and  artistic 
thought,  not  to  mention  the  spiritual  element,  which  distinguishes 
Gothic  architecture.  This  shows  throughout  a  spontaneous 
faith  and  enthusiasm  driven  into  pursuit  of  the  unknown  by 
the  force  of  an  exalted  imagination,  like  the  clouds  of  heaven 
before  a  gale,  changing  hue  and  shape  at  every  step  of  their 
progress.  But  the  Roman  style,  although  emancipated  from  the 
mathematical  formalism  and  narrowness  of  application  of  the 
Grecian,  had  a  stately,  imperious  order  of  its  own  ;  a  given 
goal  and  code  ;  planting  itself  and  taking  possession  in  the 
name  of  the  Roman  people  with  all  the  fixedness  of  will  of  the 
nation's  legions  in  their  steady  tramp  of  conquest.  It  is  a  type 
of  human  law,  the  equalizing  protective  civic  element  of  na- 
tional life,  which  welds  society  into  a  unity.  This  feature  ex- 
plains the  ease  and  freedom  with  which  it  naturalizes  itself  in 
every  civilized  country.  Imperial  Rome  had  no  bigotry.  If  it 
had  had,  Christianity,  like  Protestantism  in  Spain,  would  have 
been  stifled  long  before  it  could  have  gone  alone.  Reasons  of 
state  gave  rise  to  spasmodic  persecutions  of  any  sect  that  seemed 


TWO  GERMS  IN  ARCHITECTURE, 


107 


hostile.  But  in  general,  if  they  paid  taxes  punctually,  Jew, 
Egyptian,  Greek,  Scythian,  Gaul,  or  Christian  were  unmolested, 
or  even  protected  from  one  another  when  disposed  to  mutual 
fanaticism.  Roman  architecture  represents  this  spirit  of  toler- 
ation of  all  peoples' and  creeds  moulded  into  civic  life  under  the 
control  of  imperial  power. 

Architecture  in  embryo  contains  two  fundamental  Germs  of 
germs ;  one  relating  to  its  organic  form,  the  other,  to  ^'"^'^'^^ciMrc. 
the  vivifying  idea.  How  the  latter  works,  we  have  just  seen 
in  the  instances  of  Grecian  and  Roman  architecture,  and  its 
operation  will  be  traced  in  other  styles.  An  understanding 
of  the  dominant  motive  may  be  helped  by  keeping  in  mind 
the  rudmientary  lines  of  the  generic  architectures.  I  have  al- 
ready spoken  of  the  concave  lines  of  the  Chinese  and  Japanese 
styles  as  a  reminiscence  of  the  nomadic  lives  of  their  ances- 
tors. Wherever  the  Tartar  race  exists,  the  tent  furnishes  the 
structural  type  of  its  edifices.  In  Egypt,  the  inclined  lines  of 
the  pyramid,  obelisk,  and  temple-walls,  seem  to  point  to  a  sim- 
ilar period  of  national  existence,  varied  by  an  experience  of 
cave-life.  But  as  these  and  other  eastern  styles  have  no  sub- 
stantial influence  on  our  civilization,  we  can  confine  our  view  to 
those  which  do. 

First,  there  is  the  Grecian,  whose  governing  line  is  the  hori- 
zontal, cutting  off  and  keeping  down  the  perpendicular,  which  it 
dominates.  Its  disposition  is  to  cling  to  the  earth  ;  to  walk  by 
means  of  column  legs,  expanding  indefinitely  on  the  ground,  and 
nowise  ambitious  of  rising  high  above  it. 

Next  comes  the  Roman,  using  the  former  for  a  footstool,  and 
taking  the  circle  or  a  segment  of  it  for  its  geometrical  ideal,  with 
splendid  results  in  a  material  and  governing  sense. 

The  third  and  last  is  the  Gothic,  which  reverses  the  instinct 
of  the  first  and  selects  the  upright  as  its  primary  line,  in  vir- 
tue of  a  special  law,  which  will  disclose  itself  as  its  forms  are 
passed  in  review. 

These  three  are  the  generic  styles  of  European  civilization. 
All  others  come  from  their  intermixture,  varied  sometimes,  as 
in  Venice,  Sicily,  and  Spain,  with  features  of  Asiatic  invention. 
Even  these  trace  their  origin  to  the  simple,  organic  lines  of  the 
parent  types,  combined  into  mystical,  dreamy,  or  voluptuous  ex- 
pression by  the  Oriental  imagination.  Compared  with  Roman 
and  Tuscan  domes,  the  light,  curvilinear,  graceful  Byzantine  and 
Saracenic  ones  seem  like  opalescent  bubbles,  on  the  verge  of 


108 


LOMBARD  VARIETY. 


bursting,  and  vanishing  like  a  vision.    They  and  their  kindred 

accessories  of  etherealized  arches,  slender  columns,  and  tapering 
minarets,  are  the  sensuous  poetry  put  into  stone  of  races  whose 
enjoyment  is  mainly  passive  and  eye-fed. 

One  of  the  oldest  varieties  of  the  Roman,  is  the  so-called 
Lombard  style,  though  strictly  speaking,  the  Lombards  brought 
no  art  into  Italy,  but  employed  Italians  to  do  their  work.  At 
bottom  it  is  essentially  Etruscan  in  feeling,  excessively  realistic 
and  naturalistic  in  its  ornamentation,  making  a  copious  use  of 
animals  in  a  symbolical  sense,  or  out  of  wantonness  of  taste, 
and  particularly  prolific  in  fantastic  and  diabolic  monsters.  It 
was  a  rude  compromise  between  long-established  rules  and 
forms,  and  the  quaint  and  passionate  imaginings  of  a  fresh,  bar- 
barous race,  semi-weaned  from  heathenism.  The  wild,  novel, 
and  childish  appear  together  in  crowded  confusion,  with  orderly 
classical  details,  pure  Christian  symbolism,  remains  of  imperial 
magnificence  or  Byzantine  glitter,  in  one  incongruous  but  strik- 
ing whole,  as  if  savages  had  enslaved  various  civilizations, 
jumbled  them  in  indiscriminate  ruin,  and  out  of  the  heteroge- 
neous mass  were  trying  to  fit  a  new  garment  of  as  many  colors 
as  Joseph's  coat,  unto  themselves.  They  piled  rows  of  columns 
of  every  dimension,  kind,  and  material  from  all  sorts  of  local- 
ities, or  new  ones  of  every  conceivable  pattern  and  fashion  of 
capital,  one  over  the  other,  as  high  as  they  could  safely  go; 
they  combined  the  massive  and  strong  with  the  light  and  deli- 
cate ;  they  rudely  carved  everything  in  nature  that  took  their 
fancies,  grave,  grotesque,  or  beautiful,  and  stuck  them  here, 
there,  and  everywhere ;  they  invented  extraordinary  designs 
with  no  apparent  motive  beyond  a  feverish  desire  of  work,  and 
covering  all  available  space  with  sculpture  ;  they  used  all  kinds 
of  building  stuff  regardless  of  unity  of  tone,  effect,  and  durabil- 
ity ;  in  fact  they  anticipated,  so  far  as  inventive  but  unlettered 
action  was  concerned,  the  later  Gothic  freedom  from  conven- 
tional precedent  and  previous  science,  which  being  better  in- 
structed as  well  as  evolved  out  of  the  sympathetic  mental  ac- 
tion of  peoples  akin  in  blood,  led  to  superior  results. 

Romanesque  architecture  proper,  is  more  directly  derived 
from  the  Etruscan,  modified  and  expanded  by  Roman  influ- 
ences, than  the  preceding,  and  is  of  a  more  orderly  spirit  and 
solidity  of  form.  Indeed  the  Lombard  variety  is  the  result  of 
a  northern  graft  on  it  of  a  barbarous  energy,  license  of  action, 
and  wild,  instinctive  thought,  but  half  attuned  to  the  spiritual 


BYZANTINE  STYLE. 


109 


graces  of  Christianity.  The  Byzantine  revelled  in  splendid 
coloring  and  imposing  designs  of  mystical  meaning,  making  its 
vaulted  ceilings  and  domes  blue  and  shining,  like  the  starry 
heavens,  'and  covering  its  walls  with  glowing  mosaics  and  bright 
painting. 

Its  scale  of  ornamentation  was  more  subtle  and  refined  than 
the  Lombard,  tending  to  the  solemn  and  mysterious  where  this 
showed  a  strong  materialistic  bias.  Both  favored  bigotry  and 
superstition.  During  their  epoch,  we  find  a  strange  mixture  of 
good  and  evil,  the  crude  and  the  beautiful,  truth  and  falsehood, 
side  by  side  ;  traditions  and  laws  of  good  periods  of  art,  and 
greater  intellectual  culture  are  seen  in  chaotic  junction  with 
new  forms  and  ideas  struggling  for  complete  utterance,  but  held 
in  leash  by  the  Church,  or  kept  under  by  the  prevailing  igno- 
rance and  disorder.  Yet  the  human  mind  did  assert  its  liberty 
more  freely  and  in  some  sense,  nobly,  in  architecture  than  in 
other  ways.  This  was  in  part  due  to  the  fine  remains  of  an- 
tiquity always  in  sight,  and  partly  because  architecture  in  itself 
offers  a  great  scope  of  mental  assertion  without  coming  into 
direct  collision  with  the  despotism  of  the  moment.  Besides  it 
is  so  fundamentally  useful  and  universal  in  its  functions,  that 
one  generation,  creed,  or  policy  is  ever  eager  to  avail  itself  of 
the  edifices  of  another  by  a  mere  change  of  names  and  details, 
to  fit  them  to  new  uses,  without  bringing  in  question  the  origi- 
nating motive.  Pagan  basilicas  and  temples  were  readily  trans- 
formed into  Roman  Catholic  and  Greek  churches,  which  again 
were  converted  into  Mohammedan  mosques,  or  mosques  into 
churches,  as  the  tide  of  creeds  happened  to  ebb  and  flow.  So, 
too.  Protestantism  took  possession  of  the  ecclesiastical  buildings 
of  Romanism  when  Luther  snatched  from  it  half  of  its  territory. 

When  Roman  civilization  finally  broke  up  from  want  of  any 
firm  moral  foundation,  the  legal  and  civic  securities  of  social  life 
disappeared  with  it.  Weak  and  peace-loving  people  took  refuge 
in  convents,  which  were  virtually  sacred  fortresses,  while  those 
who  preferred  the  risks  and  prizes  of  secular  life  were  compelled 
to  defend  themselves  as  they  could.  For  the  outside  world 
there  was  no  truce  of  God.  The  struggle  of  life  was  one  of  in- 
tense, narrow-minded  selfishness.  No  man's  love  or  charity  could 
get  beyond  the  interests  of  his  family,  business,  class,  or  city. 
Every  citizen  was  the  rival  of  his  neighbor  ;  every  trade  of  its 
companion  industry ;  every  town  of  the  next,  and  so  on,  through 
all  the  distinctions  of  society.    Civil  and  national  unity  was  not 


110 


FEUDAL  VARIETIES. 


comprehended  on  the  very  soil  which  had  given  the  most  illus- 
trious example  of  them.  The  only  possible  solution  of  political 
questions  —  if  the  causes  of  the  never-ending  internecine  strifes 
deserve  to  be  called  such  —  was  the  brief  ascendency  of  one  fac- 
tion over  another,  or  of  one  petty  tyrant  over  his  rival,  each 
and  all  alike  unscrupulous  as  to  their  means  of  success.  Out- 
side of  the  Church,  which  alone  kept  populations  from  moral 
chaos,  there  was  little  centrifugal  force  in  any  direction,  except 
as  the  instincts  of  gain  or  ambition  caused  temporary  and  ever- 
shifting  coalitions  for  mutual  protection,  or  to  plunder  the  weaker. 
In  Northern  Europe  the  chief  occupation  of  the  labor-despising 
nobles  was  the  highway  robbery  of  the  industrious  classes. 
These,  in  Italy,  in  their  turn,  as  fortune  favored  them,  retaliated 
by  depriving  nobles  of  the  common  rights  of  citizens,  and  insti- 
tuting a  sort  of  outlawry  against  them.  But  in  general  the 
steel-shirted  aristocracy  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  it  would 
have  gone  still  harder  with  the  workingmen  and  traders,  if  their 
oppressors  had  not  found  a  congenial  occupation  in  fighting  each 
other. 

^  ,  ,  The  eflPects  of  such  a  social  state  was  seen  at  once 

Feudal 

architecture,  ou  architecture.  Every  man  s  house,  not  as  by  Eng- 
lish fiction  of  common-law,  but  as  stone-and-mortar  fact, 
became  his  castle.  Hence  it  was  that  Europe  of  the  dark  ages 
came  to  be  built  over  with  a  class  of  domestic  edifices,  as  unlike 
to  the  luxurious  cheerful  villas  and  palaces  of  the  Roman  period 
as  a  rose  is  to  a  nettle.  In  the  Teutonic  north,  they  wore  a 
romantic  aspect  on  their  high  crags  or  water-isolated  sites,  chosen 
for  their  impregnability,  but  within  they  were  full  of  discomfort 
and  unwholesomeness.  Indeed  they  have  furnished  the  favorite 
type  of  architecture  for  modern  prisons ;  only  we  give  our 
felons  better  light  and  ventilation  than  these  in  general  afforded. 
South  of  the  Alps  they  were  no  less  strongly  built  for  offence  and 
defence,  were  equally  devoid  of  substantial  domestic  comforts  and 
refinements,  but  they  retained  somewhat  of  the  ancient  palatial 
grandeur  of  proportions  and  severe  simplicity  of  forms  which 
had  come  down  from  the  Etruscans  and  still  obtain  in  Tuscany. 
But  what  most  emphasized  these  fortified  homes,  and  also  the 
ecclesiastical  architecture  of  mediaeval  Italy,  was  their  lofty  tow- 
ers. The  finest  specimen  of  the  campanile  is  that  of  Giotto, 
belonging  to  the  Duomo  of  Florence,  which  as  regards  beauty 
might  have  been  let  down  from  heaven  itself.  Those  of  the 
churches  were  of  course  made  to  harmonize  with  the  parent 


TOWERS. 


Ill 


edifices  and  their  religious  functions.  As  a  dominating  architec- 
tural feature,  it  wholly  changed  the  look  of  the  landscape  from 
what  it  was  in  its  pagan  period.  Perpendicular,  threatening, 
warning,  and  watching  masses  beetling  far  up  the  sky,  succeeded 
to  the  harmonious,  horizontal,  but  tame  lines  of  the  pure  classical 
styles,  which  had  given  a  look  of  repose  and  assured  security  to 
the  country,  quite  at  variance  with  the  clangor  of  bells  and 
grim  aspect  of  the  towers,  particularly  those  attached  to  the 
houses  of  the  nobles.  These  were  built  solely  for  refuge  in  ex- 
treme danger.  Each  noble's  house  was  for  practical  purposes 
a  suit  of  protective  armor  for  himself  and  his  followers.  But  the 
tower  was  the  shield  that  guarded  the  armor,  or  the  lance  that 
gave  the  deadly  thrust.  Every  precaution  was  taken  to  make 
it  a  secure  stronghold.  The  walls  were  too  thick  to  be  battered 
down,  and  fire  would  not  harm  them.  They  were  solidly  car- 
ried up  to  a  great  height,  often  several  hundred  feet,  with  but 
few  openings  for  light,  while  leaving  but  a  small  interior  area 
for  floors,  and  the  ladders  or  stone  steps  which  led  to  the 
top.  Internally  they  were  dark,  chilly  wells.  Externally  glum, 
angular,  straight  chimneys  of  Cyclopean  dimensions,  mostly  sur- 
mounted by  machicolations,  which  added  to  their  frowning  look, 
as  heavy  eyebrows  do  to  a  man's.  A  popular  law  finally  either 
prohibited  new  ones,  or  compelled  the  old  to  be  reduced  to  an 
elevation  not  exceeding  one  hundred  feet.  Previously  the  Ital- 
ian cities,  especially  Florence  and  Siena,  as  may  be  seen  in 
thirteenth  century  paintings,  showed  such  a  multitude  of  these 
bare  shafts  rising  in  stiff  grandeur  far  above  the  ordinary  horizon 
of  architecture,  that  they  seemed  like  the  giant  trees  of  some 
primitive  forest,  peeled  and  stripped  of  every  green  and  pleasant 
thing,  and  turned  by  some  horrid  enchantment  into  stone. 

San  Gemigiano  still  retains  its  group  of  warlike  towers  in 
their  original  state.  It  is  not  easy  to  demolish  them,  nor  are 
they  available  for  modern  life.  Like  the  keeps,  oubliettes,  port- 
cullises, and  drawbridges  of  old  castles,  the  armor  of  knight- 
errantry,  and  the  instruments  of  torture  of  the  Inquisition, 
they  serve  as  reminders  of  the  lives  our  ancestors  led  when 
force  was  the  test  of  right.  The  walls  of  the  town  are  ivy- 
grown  and  bright  with  lovely  flowers.  Nature  has  kindly 
put  over  them  her  mantle  of  the  picturesque.  But  no  gracious 
touch  of  hers  softens  the  sullen  outlook  with  which  the  towers 
of  San  Gemigiano,  planted  on  the  summit  of  the  hill  on  which 
the  town  is  built,  domineer  the  country  in  a  circuit  of  many 


112 


MYSTERIOUS  CHAMBER, 


leagues  ;  an  ominous  spectacle,  out  of  tune  with  the  vine  and 
olive  landscape  that  lies  at  their  feet. 

I  had  to  pass  a  night  in  that  which  now  forms  the  spine  of 
the  solitary  inn.  In  looking  up  the  uninhabitable  part,  there 
was  a  weird  cobweb  mystery  about  its  deep  shadow,  especially 
by  the  light  of  a  candle,  that  Dore  would  have  peopled  with  in- 
describable horrors  ;  and  from  my  chamber,  passages  with  doors 
that  moved  uneasily  on  their  hinges  the  night  through,  led  off 
darkly  and  remotely,  one  knew  not  where  ;  while  the  thick  walls 
oppressed  me  as  if  I  were  in  a  dungeon,  alive  with  the  evil  of 
unhappy  lives  here  extinguished.  The  morning  light  was  wel- 
come. 

History  shows  us  that  peoples  are  extremely  tenacious  of  par- 
ticular forms,  currents  of  thought,  and  manifestations  of  feelings, 
which  have  identified  themselves  with  their  eaily  growth.  It 
requires  a  prodigious  upheaval  of  mind  to  revolutionize  and  re- 
new them  on  an  altogether  different  pattern,  however  intrinsi- 
cally superior  it  may  be  to  that  in  vogue.  Even  Christianity 
has  not  been  able  to  extirpate,  in  those  countries  where  Grecian 
and  Roman  civilization  prevailed,  all  the  fashions  and  inventions 
of  paganism,  but  has  had  to  adopt  many  of  them,  and  modify 
itself  to  others.  How  the  fundamental  exigencies  of  the  old 
races  began  and  grew  into  fixed  proclivities  of  mind  and  body, 
firmly  rooted  in  their  blood,  we  may  speculate  about,  but  scarcely 
hope  to  actually  find  out.  Whenever  the  current  of  a  nation's 
life  has  once  chosen  its  course,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  change 
it ;  usually  it  is  largely  prompted  in  its  choice  by  climate  and 
external  circumstances;  and  that  which  in  the  outset  was  mostly 
the  result  of  material  pressure  or  persuasion,  or  had  its  germ  in 
it,  finally  becomes  a  permanent  rule  of  taste,  and  is  more  identi- 
fied with  inherited  associations  of  pleasure  and  force  of  habit 
than  with  any  absolute  necessity  of  life.  Thus  Grecian  and 
Etruscan  forms  of  architecture  have  always  kept  the  upper  hand 
in  Italy,  though  their  supremacy  has  been  contested  by  others, 
which,  being  more  directly  the  result  of  Christian  faith  and  sen- 
timent, were  better  adapted  to  express  them. 
Origin,  aim,  The  first  iuflux  of  tliis  kind  was  the  semi-barbar- 
^Gothic!'^ "  ous  Lombard  feeling,  before  mentioned,  as  having  been 
speedily  absorbed  and  controlled  by  the  dominant  local  styles,  and 
leaving  in  them  but  inconsequential  memorials  of  its  invasion. 
Despite  its  vigor,  dome,  column,  architrave,  and  pediment  — the 
indigenous  pagan  anatomy  of  architecture  —  kept  their  places. 


A  VIRGIN-BRIDE. 


113 


They  might  coquet  with  new  faces,  but  would  not  put  them  on  an 
equal  footing  with  themselves. 

Their  home-rule,  however,  was  fated  to  be  severely  tested  by 
a  new  style,  differing  in  all  respects  from  theirs.  It  was  born  of 
a  hostile  race,  inspired  by  a  creed  which  had  supplanted  heathen- 
ism everywhere,  developed  in  a  climate  and  nature  the  reverse 
of  theirs ;  lawless  where  they  were  orderly,  unseemly  where 
they  were  seemly,  undisciplined  where  they  were  constrained ; 
as  varied,  flexible,  and  strange  as  they  were  the  contrary.  And 
this  was  not  all.  Its  organic  lines  and  ethical  aspirations  were 
antagonistic  to  the  classical.  North  of  the  Alps  it  had  overcome 
every  style  that  disputed  the  soil  with  it,  had  outgrown  them  in 
elaborated  science  and  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  civilized  com- 
munities, and  in  consequence  crossed  the  mountains  with  the 
prestige  of  invincibility.  It  had  also  in  its  favor  that  the  peo- 
ples who  originated  it  ruled  in  Italy,  which  then  had  no  political 
unity  or  national  ambition.  Even  their  common  religion  was  in 
closest  sympathy  with  its  aesthetic  character ;  its  associations 
and  forms  were  free  of  any  taint  of  paganism,  while  they  were 
specially  suited  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  Catholic  rituali. 
As  architecture,  it  was  a  virgin-bride  for. the  Roman  Church;- 
immaculate,  beautiful,  transcendent.  Yet,  disregarding  the  ex- 
ample of  the  rest  of  Christendom,  the  Roman  Church  refused 
to  take  to  its  heart  the  lovely  Christian  maiden  that  came  from 
the  north  to  offer  herself  as  a  legitimate  spouse  in  place  of  the 
pagan  mistresses  with  whom  it  had  so  long  dallied. 

This  looks  strange.  It  will  seem  more  so  on  examining  further 
the  claims  of  the  new  style  to  replace  preceding  ones  as  the 
special  architecture  of  the  Church.  In  confronting  the  classical 
on  its  natal  ground,  it  was  indeed  one  extreme  meeting  another 
to  struggle  for  victory.  There  was  no  possibility  of  harmonious 
union.  The  essence  of  the  one  organic  form  counteracts  that 
of  the  other.  Whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  unite  the  styles, 
both  suffer.  It  is  like  passing  a  law  that  is  certain  to  be  vetoed ; 
indeed  worse,  because,  while  futile  legislation  is  soon  forgotten, 
incongruous  architecture  remains  in  sight  to  pervert  public  taste. 
Much  was  tried  in  this  way  in  Italy,  out  of  the  old  habit  of  the 
Roman  Church  to  keep  to  her  own  fashions,  and  make  all  others 
subservient.  "  But  every  intermingling  with  the  Gothic  of  any 
element,  not  in  harmony  with  its  intent  and  organic  lines,  is  a 
scar  on  its  beauty  and  a  confusion  of  its  purpose.  We  find  evi- 
dence of  this  in  those  ecclesiastical  edifices  erected  in  Italy  in 
8 


114 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GOTHIC. 


the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  for  its  novel  visitor,  while  in  the 
few  in  which  in  the  main  they  adhered  to  its  laws,  we  recognize 
at  once  its  superior  adaptation  to  a  spiritual  belief,  to  those  con- 
structed on  the  general  plan  of  pagan  buildings  of  worship. 
After  some  abortive  experiments,  Italy  rejected  Gothic  for  classi- 
cal forms,  and  has  never  since  swerved  from  her  first  passion. 

Some  writers  declare  the  Gothic  to  be  a  natural  growth  out 
of  preceding  styles  ;  as  it  were  an  orderly  transmission  and 
development  of  germs  contained  in  them.  This  can  be  true 
only  in  the  generic  affinity  of  all  human  work,  as  the  product 
of  mind.  Those  who  find  a  more  intimate  relation,  I  opine,  are 
influenced  by  the  various  amalgamations  attempted  as  it  came  in 
contact  with  other  forms,  rather  than  by  an  examination  of  its 
essential  attributes.  For  instance,  a  cursory  look  at  the  "  Duomo  " 
of  Florence  would  convey  the  impression  that  it  was  Gothic. 
But  a  more  critical  view  will  show  that,  although  Gothic  details 
have  been  efi^ectively  used,  they  are  subordinated  to  the  guiding 
lines  of  classical  architecture.  Even  the  pointed  arches  of  the 
interior  are  cold  and  unsatisfactory,  done  more  as  a  novelty  than 
from  any  genuine  liking.  The  facades  of  the  cathedrals  of 
Siena  and  Orvieto,  though  not  completely  Gothic,  come  nearer  its 
true  feeling.  In  both  the  upright  line  domineers  their  construc- 
tive character.  Milan  alone  offers  a  great  Gothic  cathedral 
pure  in  inception  and  design,  the  work  of  a  German,  though 
subsequently  marred  by  Italian  interpolation  of  details  foreign 
to  its  spirit. 

Mixed  styles  afford  but  an  indifferent  clew  to  the  original 
sources  of  an  art.  To  get  at  them,  we  must  go  to  original  ex- 
amples. 

How,  where,  and  with  whom  did  Gothic  architecture  originate  ? 
Broadly  speaking,  it  owed  its  being  to  races  beyond  the  northern 
slope  of  the  Alps,  considered  as  barbarians  by  the  peoples  of 
Italy,  just  as  nowadays  Europeans  talk  of  Americans  and  Rus- 
sians, without  reflecting  that  if  the  standard  of  polite  culture  is 
lower  than  theirs,  it  is  more  than  compensated  in  the  masses  by 
freshness  of  thought  and  intense  national  ambition.  Such  a 
condition  is  especially  favorable  for  a  vigorous  and  original  devel- 
opment of  character,  and  consequently  of  new  and  striking  forms 
of  civilization.  Greece  and  Italy  had  had  their  opportunity,  and 
grandly  responded  to  it.  It  was  now  the  turn  of  races  younger 
in  civilization  to  contribute  to  the  universal  progress  by  the 
development  —  as  in  what  concerns  my  topic  —  of  an  architec- 


FORERUNNER  OF  GOTHIC. 


115 


ture  of  a  higher  religious  character,  greater  variety  of  shape 
and  flexibility  of  form,  and  at  the  same  time  better  suited  to 
their  circumstances,  than  any  then  known.  As  a  reflection  of 
themselves,  it  necessarily  embodied  their  intellectual  characteris- 
tics as  well  as  the  essence  of  their  faith. 

We  have  noted  how  in  the  Lombard  style  some  of  this  north- 
ern feeling  crossed  the  Alps,  and  showed  itself  in  a  strange, 
almost  barbarous  aspect.  This  was  a  forerunner  of  the  Gothic 
movement.  Both  possessed  a  perceptible  pagan  element  coming 
down  from  the  time  when  black  forests  covered  Central  Europe, 
and  the  ancestral  imagination  was  quickened  by  a  lively  belief 
in  a  mythology  of  congenial  aspect  and  attributes  to  the  savage- 
ness  of  the  daily  life  about  it.  This  fostered  a  prolific  demon- 
ology.  But  the  deep  shadows  of  the  mysterious,  untamed  nature 
that  met  the  primitive  Teuton  on  every  side  were  offset  by  other 
and  more  loving  associations  with  the  landscape,  which  incited 
in  him  manliness,  religious-mindedness,  respect  for  woman,  naive 
suggestions  of  a  happier  existence,  and  visions  of  unreal  things. 
His  body  grew  hardy,  and  his  mind  imaginative,  amid  his 
native  scenery.  There  was  further  developed  in  him  self-reliance 
and  a  rugged  individuality.  These  were  joined  to  those  special 
qualities  that  arise  out  of  the  contingencies  of  the  periods  of  bar- 
barisms of  all  intellectual  races,  —  fierceness  with  strength,  a 
childish  flow  of  spirits,  and  social  desires  alternated  by  gloom  and 
distrust,  and  a  grotesqueness  of  fancy  which,  unchecked,  tended 
to  the  vulgar  and  obscene.  These  conditions  and  qualities  did 
not  always  appear  together  or  with  equal  force  among  the  aborig- 
inal tribes  whose  descendants  invented  the  Gothic  architecture, 
but  in  some  degree,  varying  in  different  localities,  they  did  al- 
ways exist ;  and  their  spirit,  controlled  or  modified  by  Christian- 
ity, entered  largely  into  it.  Knowing  this,  it  no  longer  seems 
strange  that  the  Italians  should  have  had  no  hearty  liking  for  an 
architecture  which  derived  its  characteristic  traits  from  ideas  and 
modes  of  life  with  which  they  had  no  sympathy,  indeed  were 
absolutely  repugnant  to  them.  The  cause  of  their  neglect  of  it 
lay  deeper  in  human  nature  than  even  a  community  of  rites 
and  creeds.  Gothic  architecture  was  the  aesthetic  fruit  of  a 
race  whose  blood,  nourished  by  a  wholly  different  diet,  has 
always  left  an  uncongenial  impression  on  the  Italian  mind  of  all 
it  has  ever  done  in  art. 

But  the  psychological  gulf  between  the  Italian  and  German 
as  regards  architecture  does  not  end  here.    What  has  just  been 


116 


CHARACTER  OF  GOTHIC. 


observed  of  the  constitutional  tendencies  of  the  Teutonic  and 
Gallic  minds  refers  chiefly  to  them  as  developed  in  their  native 
wilderness  under  the  influence  of  heathenism.  The  bias  which 
they  thus  received  indeed  gave  to  Gothic  architecture  fundamen- 
tal qualities  of  freedom,  variety,  originality,  a  quaint  mixture  of 
the  common  and  imaginative,  exhaustless  invention,  and  intense 
esotery  of  feature,  whether  as  to  detail  or  entirety.  And  so  we 
find  its  mental  roots  strike  down  to  heathen  soil.  But  had  it 
received  no  other  nutriment,  it  never  would  have  risen  to  the 
spiritual  height  it  finally  did.  Christianity  grafted  in  fresh 
races  not  yet  moulded  into  stagnating  despotisms,  but  accus- 
tomed to  vigorous  individual  and  cooperative  action,  and  earnest 
in  their  feelings,  was  exactly  the  influence  needed  to  expand 
these  primitive  germs  into  an  architecture  as  new  as  it  was 
lovely.  Its  specific  excellence  was  founded  on  its  recognition 
of  the  illimitable  as  the  supreme  idea.  All  previous  non-cognate 
styles  are  limited  in  law,  scope,  and  expression.  From  a  given 
section  a  perfect  whole  could  be  made  by  simple  expansion  of 
the  embryonic  model.  They  were  strictly  aesthetic  problems 
based  on  mathematical  data  readily  solved,  or  at  least  confined 
to  definite  intellectual  bounds,  and  manifesting  mundane  am- 
bitions. This  cannot  be  said  of  isolated  Gothic  forms  or  frag- 
ments of  edifices.  The  animating  spirit  could  not  be  locked  up 
in  prescribed  formula  and  shapes,  for  its  very  essence  was  infinite. 
Palpitating  with  young  life,  seeking  to  incarnate  in  dumb  mat- 
ter the  spiritual  hopes  and  fears  of  -  men,  both  for  time  and 
eternity,  it  recognized  no  limit  to  its  action  except  those  general 
laws  which  governed  matter  itself.  No  one  was  empowered  to 
decide  what  only  it  might  use,  invent,  or  create.  None  had  the 
right  to  declare  that  this  or  that  thing  in  the  natural  world,  or 
borrowed  from  the  unseen,  should  be  proscribed.  If  anything 
created  of  man  can  be  a  law  unto  itself,  ever  evading  repetition, 
formalism,  or  giving  a  prosaic  reason  for  its  being,  it  surely  is 
Gothic  architecture.  In  this  respect  it  is  akin  to  the  restless- 
ness and  variety  of  nature  in  its  attempts  to  manifest  the  Soul  of 
the  Universe.  This  boundless  freedom  of  choice  and  combina- 
tion of  general  forms  and  minute  details  applies  to  its  construc- 
tive being.  The  religious  instinct,  when  pure  and  simple,  either 
in  prayer  or  material  aspiration,  inevitably  looks  upward,  but 
with  bowed  head,  as  best  befits  man  before  his  Maker.  Hence, 
as  in  Gothic  architecture,  it  chooses  perpendicular  lines  whereby 
to  express  its  yearning,  singly,  or  in  gradually  drawing  together 


ENGLISH  GOTHIC. 


117 


masses,  as  the  spire  externally  lost  in  the  blue  of  the  sky  or 
internally  in  pointed  arches  whose  nice  junctions  are  hidden  in 
the  symbolical  glories  of  the  artificial  heavens  that  they  pierce, 
while  bowing  over  and  protecting  the  worshipper.  Its  whole 
force  is  given  to  express  the  longings  of  the  man  spiritual ;  a 
perpetual,  unfulfilled,  but  never  given-over  struggle  to  mount  to 
those  regions  where  alone  supreme  felicity  is  to  be  secured. 
Other  styles  attain  their  ideal  repose.  The  objects  of  their  crea- 
tion being  secured,  nothing  remains  to  hope  or  try  for.  Classical 
architecture  seeks  to  reduce  certain  definite  ideas  to  prescribed 
forms.  Hence  its  lavish  use  of  limiting  and  confining  lines. 
Gothic,  on  the  contrary,  tending  to  lose  natural  forms  in  spiri- 
tual ideas,  seizes  on  those  which  suggest  neither  beginning  nor 
end  ;  their  unseen  foundations  pointing  to  an  endless  downwards 
as  their  scarcely  perceptible  tops  do  to  an  endless  upwards ;  each 
a  suggestion  of  the  possible  immortal  condition  of  the  human 
soul,  according  as  it  rejects  or  receives  the  religion  placed  tangi- 
bly before  it  in  the  intermediate  sanctuary.  There  is  no  bridging 
over,  materially  or  spiritually,  the  dividing  chasm  of  the  classical 
and  Gothic  architectures. 

My  comparison  may  seem  too  finely  put  or  fancifully  drawn 
out,  but  these  vital  differences  grow  on  my  mental  view,  as 
my  experience  of  both  enlarges.  Ecclesiastical  Gothic  is  a  lov- 
ing, enthusiastic  attempt  to  embody  the  history  and  inspirations 
of  Christianity  in  congenial  forms.  The  genius  of  its  authors 
has  caused  it  to  stand  without  a  rival  for  its  special  purpose  of 
divine  worship.  Each  nation  with  whom  it  sprang  into  being 
almost  simultaneously  and  spontaneously  stamped  on  it  local 
traits  while  agreed  in  general  character.  Renan  claims  that  it 
originated  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Paris,  and  that 
French  architects  introduced  it  into  England  and  Germany. 
Whether  this  is  precisely  true  or  not  is  immaterial  to  my  pur- 
pose. France,  Spain,  England,  and  Germany  varied  its  details 
according  to  their  national  temperaments  and  changes  in  archi- 
tectural taste.  In  all  it  was  a  spasmodic,  enchanting  effort,  at- 
taining in  none  to  a  perfect  religious  development,  or  a  final 
exhaustion  of  its  capacities,  seldom  even  a  structural  completion, 
before  it  passed  out  of  fashion,  superseded,  in  most  instances,  by 
bastard  classicalism  imported  from  Italy  to  meet  the  views  of 
ruling  classes  who  considered  only  how  they  could  best  solidify 
their  temporal  interests. 

English  Gothic  is  staid,  more  scientific  than  others  in  ex- 


118 


GERMAN  AND  FRENCH  GOTHIC, 


pression,  indulging  less  in  fancy  or  mysticism  ;  more  solemn 
and  more  simple,  but  finally  losing  its  finest  imaginative  quali- 
ties in  monotonous  repetitions  of  parallel  lines  whose  primitive 
significance  is  lost  in  mathematical  formula  of  building.  There 
is,  however,  something  in  the  old  roof- tracery  that  recalls  the 
ocean;  a  sort  of  wild  break  or  gentle  toss  dying  melodiously 
away  into  joyful  stone-foam,  or  mournful  diapason  of  depart- 
ing strength,  as  the  wave-ripple  washes  lightly  over  the  white 
sands,  or  the  breaker  rolls  its  solemn  chant  along  the  trembling 
shore. 

German  Germany  puts  more  of  the  romantic,  weird,  and 

Gothic.  speculative  into  her  forms.  The  grotesque  and  spiri- 
tual keep  company.  Color,  too,  plays  a  greater  role,  while  sculp- 
ture knows  no  limits  of  fancy.  Her  Gothic  is  richer  and  more 
metaphysical  than  that  of  England,  inclining  at  times  towards 
realistic  homeliness  of  invention.  As  a  whole,  it  is  nearer 
allied  to  the  Spanish,  which  is  particularly  imposing  and  magnifi- 
cent. 

French  It  is  to  the  French  mind  that  the  Gothic  owes  its 

Gothic.  most  graceful,  delicate,  and  fanciful  expression,  break- 
ing up  its  strength  into  a  flamboyant  lightness  and  sparkle  that 
rivals  the  gleamy  play  of  flame  itself  If  the  English  took  their 
finest  movement  of  roof-swell  from  the  sea,  the  French  were  not 
less  guided  by  the  opposite  element  in  the  stone-traceries  they  shot 
upwards  toward  heaven  in  burning  window,  soaring  buttress,  and 
gleesome  spire.  Theirs  was  a  daring  attempt  to  transform  the 
solid  into  the  incorporeal,  or  what  looked  so  to  the  imagination, 
so  transcendently  vision-like  did  they  rear  their  cathedrals ;  not 
so  much  spiritual  in  feeling  to  the  soul,  as  spirituel  in  sentiment 
to  the  mind.  All  that  was  finest  and  best  in  French  genius 
found  scope  in  them  as  in  nothing  else  before  and  since.  At 
the  same  time  the  home-devils  of  their  specific  legacy  of  human 
nature  lurk  there,  sometimes  much  concealed,  but  never  wholly 
cast  out ;  grotesque,  obscene,  bestial  imps,  cruel  and  scofiing ; 
the  counteracting  powers  of  those  forces  which  sought  to  realize 
in  architecture  a  pure  Christian  type,  in  which  material  beauty 
and  devout  desire  should  be  consistently  united  in  glorifying  God 
and  comforting  men. 

The  Cathe-        The  particular  virtue  of  feature  of  the  Gothic  is  its 
constructive  individuality.    No  two  edifices  are  alike. 
Its  essence  eludes  copying  and  repeating ;  for  if  not  easier,  it  is 
certainly  pleasanter,  to  create  anew  than  to  mechanically  repeat 


A  CATHEDRAL. 


119 


anything.  Classical  temples  had  a  family  likeness.  Gothic 
cathedrals  have  a  spiritual  resemblance,  with  the  greatest  diver- 
sity of  features.  One-man  skill  characterizes  classical  archi- 
tecture. Each  detail  of  sculpture,  painting,  or  form  must  be 
subordinated  to  a  given  central  organization,  or  else  it  becomes 
a  tasteless  and  deformed  object.  As  it  is  begun,  so  it  must  be 
finished,  and  the  completion  can  be  seen  in  the  mind's  eye  be- 
fore a  stone  is  laid.  There  may  be  intellectual  pleasure  in 
viewing  a  perfect  temple,  but  there  is  no  surprise  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Now  all  this  is  reversed  with  the  Gothic.  Many  men  of 
many  minds  design  and  make  it.  Their  religious  purpose  suf- 
fices to  give  them  a  unity  of  effect  and  meaning.  All  else  takes 
its  rightful  course  by  virtue  of  those  laws  of  creative  freedom 
and  variety  which  makes  the  constitution  of  Gothic  architecture 
operate  like  that  of  Nature.  Things  grow  into  their  proper 
places  and  colors.  The  highest  inventive  labors  of  architect, 
sculptor,  painter,  mosaicist,  metal-worker,  carver,  glass-stainer, 
and  workmen  of  every  grade,  one  generation  after  another, 
patiently  looking  forward  to  th^  perfect  end,  in  enthusiastic  con- 
cert carry  forward  to  their  complete  architectural  fruition,  for 
their  common  welfare,  the  profoundest  ideas  and  deepest  emo- 
tions of  a  people  concentrated  in  their  most  momentous  inter- 
ests in  the  future,  as  well  as  liveliest  ambitions  in  the  present 
life. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  Gothic  cathedral  built  in  this  spirit 
allowed  to  every  one  employed  in  it  ample  scope  for  the  exercise 
of  his  particular  talent.  Honest  brain  and  hand  work,  not  sense- 
less machine  labor,  such  as  kills  the  life  of  modern  building,  fill 
the  chief  part.  The  architect  defined  its  anatomy,  and  gave  to 
it  spiritual  comeliness  of  shape,  according  to  the  promptings  of 
his  own  genius.  There  was  also  space  and  place  outside  and  in 
for  all  kinds  of  artists  to  give  free  swing  to  their  talents.  Being 
a  type  of  a  Christian  commonwealth,  hierarchal  in  government, 
but  democratic  in  recognizing  the  worth  of  the  individual  with- 
out reference  to  birth  or  riches,  and  putting  him  in  his  right 
place  within  its  jurisdiction,  admitting  all  on  an  equal  footing  to 
its  spiritual  privileges,  its  intellectual  or  artistic  entertainments, 
and  its  protective  repose  ;  l  also  being  the  locality  of  enactment 

iln  the  Middle  Ages  the  cathedral  was  the  house  of  worship,  the  lecture- 
room,  the  spectacle,  and  the  place  of  amusement  combined ;  dancing  even  being 
introduced,  and  kept  up  to  this  day  in  the  Seville  Cathedral  on  the  fete  of  Cor- 
pus Dominus. 


120 


A  CATHEDRAL. 


of  the  sacraments  which  decided  individual  happiness  here  and 
hereafter,  a  world  and  heaven  in  miniature,  —  the  cathedral  ne- 
cessarily had  something  for  each  worker  to  do,  some  hope,  relief, 
or  truth  for  the  needy  in  spirit,  as  well  as  fine  music,  stirring 
eloquence,  varied  and  instructive  art,  and  finally  a  hearty  welcome 
for  every  comer.  No  other  class  of  buildings  combines  so  many 
functions  affecting  the  welfare  of  man  in  such  harmonious  con- 
centration and  for  so  wide-spread  and  lofty  purposes.  None  other 
has  fixed  itself  so  firmly  in  the  universal  heart ;  once  to  create, 
and  now  to  preserve  in  recognition  of  its  past  good. 

The  true  ecclesiastical  Gothic  is  an  image  of  the  soul's  present 
progress  and  final  reward.  Its  walls  are  carved  and  painted 
over  with  Bible  histories  and  mysteries  of  faith,  lives  and  efl&gies 
of  famous  men,  always  either  an  example  or  warning  ;  deeds  of 
ennobled  ancestors  now  lying  in  marble-sleep  on  their  monu- 
ments, whose  white  glimmer  comes  through  the  solemn  shadow  of 
overhanging  vaults  like  a  spectral  light  from  a  ghostly  world ; 
grateful  memorials  of  science,  learning,  and  benevolence,  whatever 
distinguishes  a  man  from  the  common  herd  ;  holy  allegory  and 
symbol,  or  leaf,  flower,  bird,  animal,  quaint  invention  and  curious 
fancy,  anything  the  artist's  free-will  could  find  to  do,  carved  ou 
column,  capital,  shaft,  or  doorway  ;  an  every-day  woi'ld  around, 
and  a  celestial  world  above  ;  men  and  angels  in  ecstatic  commun- 
ion or  gazing  on  the  Birth,  Baptism,  Crucifixion,  and  Resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus ;  the  Last  Judgment,  Hell  and  Heaven,  with  their 
lost  and  redeemed  multitudes  ;  all  this  and  much  else  dimly  or 
vividly  seen  as  light  and  shadow  alternate,  at  one  instant  dark 
and  foreboding,  the  next  flashing,  in  gem-like  colors  as  rays  of 
sun  strike  on  them  through  stained  glass,  lighting  the  whole  in- 
terior as  if  the  painted  saints  and  prophets  that  inhabit  the 
windows  had  actually  come  back  from  heaven,  and  were  flood- 
ing the  sanctuary  with  celestial  beauty ;  heart,  intellect,  and  soul 
all  quickened  into  new  life  ;  the  bad  reproved,  the  weak  strength- 
ened, the  good  rewarded,  every  human  condition  addressed,  and 
its  future  lot  forecast :  such  is  the  moral  scope  and  material 
showing  of  a  complete  mediaeval  cathedral.  There  is  something 
sublime  m  its  appeal  and  promise  to  all  men,  something  distinctive 
and  apart  from  all  other  forms  of  jjesthetic  speech.  And  while 
it  assures  hope  to  the  inquiring  heart,  it  preaches  action  to  the 
languid,  and  has  a  curse  for  the  false  hearted  ;  for  it  is  even  more 
the  embodiment  of  the  spiritual  disquiet  of  man  than  of  his  re- 
pose. 


PREMATURE  DEATH. 


121 


Although  I  place  so  high  an  estimate  on  the  Gothic,  as  an  art- 
exponent  of  Christianity,  it  is  not  wholly  based  on  what  it  posi- 
tively accomplished,  broad  and  beautiful  as  this  is.  Happily 
for  it,  as  before  hinted,  in  its  contemplation,  form  loses  itself  in 
idea.  This  alone  casts  a  spell  over  the  critical  faculties,  and 
leaves  the  imagination  at  liberty  to  evoke  out  of  its  own  conscious- 
ness anything  wanting  for  its  constructive  completeness  or 
more  perfect  rendering  of  the  religious  motive.  Instinctively 
the  mind  accepts  its  spiritual  suggestiveness,  closing  its  outward 
senses  to  material  shortcomings  in  masses  or  aesthetic  incomplete- 
ness of  details.  No  other  styles  assert  for  themselves  a  corre- 
sponding charity  of  judgment,  for  they  challenge  comparisons 
between  specific  laws  and  their  execution.  Any  variation  from 
the  established  rules  of  composition  of  classical  architecture  be- 
comes painfully  apparent  to  the  instructed  person,  like  discord 
in  music  or  a  jumble  of  feet  in  poetry  ;  while  vagaries  in  orna- 
mentation have  the  same  disagreeable  effect  on  the  eye  that 
false  grammar  has  on  the  ear.  Now  the  Gothic  in  this  respect 
resembles  the  truly  Christian  character,  which  is  its  prototype. 
So  manifest  are  its  virtues,  and  so  exalted  the  standard  it  sets  up 
as  an  example,  that  it  becomes  with  the  building  as  with  the 
righteous  human  being  :  our  veneration  overlooks  those  trivial 
defects  which  are  inherent  in  the  earthly  man  and  his  work. 
Moreover,  the  latitude  of  omission  and  commission,  rule  and 
license,  order  and  variety,  which  is  the  birthright  of  the  Gothic, 
added  to  its  truly  catholic  motives,  makes  it  difficult  to  fix  on 
any  formula  of  criticism  of  universal  application.  Born  of  the 
spirit,  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  best-beloved  of  the  soul. 
Loyal  to  the  moral  causes  of  its  origin.  Worship  and  Good-will, 
it  ever  was.  Yet  it  did  not  reach  the  perfection  these  two  sen- 
timents were  capable  of  bestowing,  if  allowed  to  operate  on  the 
human  mind  undisturbed  by  conflicting  passions.  A  superior 
development  of  ecclesiastical  architecture  in  this  form  is,  how- 
ever, not  a  question  for  present  consideration.  The  development 
that  did  occur  was  the  best  possible  under  the  circumstances, 
most  creditable  to  its  authors,  and  encouraging  to  humanity  for 
future  action.  As  if  anticipating  its  premature  death,  like  the 
fabled  notes  of  the  dying  swan,  the  melody  of  the  "  frozen 
music"  was  sweetest  not  long  before  the  invention  of  printing, 
which  more  than  any  other  single  cause  led  to  its  rapid  decline 
on  the  soil  of  its  birth,  aided  as  it  was  by  the  fundamental 
changes  of  political  thought  and  religious  feeling  brought  about 


122 


EFFECT  OF  PRINTING. 


by  the  contemporaneous  appearance  of  Protestantism  in  Germany 
and  the  Renaissance  in  Italy. 

My  subject  would  expand  too  much  were  I  to  go  into  an 
analysis  of  the  Gothic  as  it  appeared  in  mediaeval  civic  and  do- 
mestic buildings,  especially  as  the  latter  are  of  a  transient  na- 
ture, seldom  attaining  longevity,  and  ever  subject  to  personal 
caprice.  Both,  however,  possess  great  interest  artistically  and 
ethically.  Each  sprung  from  kindred  sources  to  the  ecclesiastical, 
and  were  developed  into  corrresponding,  fascinating  aspects  of 
odd  luxuriance,  and  conceits  of  forms  and  colors,  and  an  inter- 
mingling of  babarous  instinct  and  habits  with  the  more  orderly 
aspirations  of  incipient  civilizations  struggling  for  aesthetic  breath- 
ing-space and  legal  protection. 

Effect  of  In  saying  that  printing  had  much  to  do  with  the 

the  Gothic,  disuse  of  the  ecclesiastical  Gothic,  I  do  not  imply 
that  the  two  cannot  exist  together,  but  simply  that  the  imme- 
diate elfect  in  races  prone  to  reasoning,  was  to  supersede  the 
sensuous  language  of  art  as  the  chief  medium  of  instruction. 
Hitherto  the  intellectual  appeal  to  the  people  had  been  based 
on  a  ritual  which,  admitting  no  questioning,  was  presented  in 
forms  impressive  to  the  senses,  and  exciting  to  the  feelings. 
Emotional  training  was  attractive  and  facile,  but  one-sided. 
Consequently,  when  articles  of  faith  came  to  be  discussed,  the 
mental  energies  which  had  found  such  an  enthusiastic  vent 
in  architecture  were  turned  more  into  the  channel  of  abstract 
thought,  which  was  communicable  to  the  masses  most  readily 
by  means  of  books  and  preaching.  Words  got.  the  ascend- 
ency over  Art  as  the  exponent  of  ideas,  just  in  the  proportion 
that  the  exercise  of  individual  reason  was  admitted  in  matters 
of  religious  belief.  Science,  which  had  been  subordinated  to 
theology  ever  since  the  Church  claimed  infallible  power,  began 
to  make  its  influence  felt  in  every  phase  of  life.  Wherever 
common  education  has  been  diffused,  books  have  driven  art 
into  the  background  in  popular  favor  and  miderstanding,  simply 
from  the  facility  with  which  they  are  multiplied,  their  adaptability 
to  the  mental  wants  of  every  class,  and  the  cheapness  and  com- 
pactness with  which  they  disseminate  ideas  and  present  aesthetic 
images  to  the  imagination.  High  art,  especially  of  a  sacred  char- 
acter, reached  its  climax  in  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture, 
just  at  the  epoch  that  printing  began  to  be  popularly  dissemi- 
nated. No  sooner  was  this  made  universal  than  the  former  faded 
out,  or  passed  into  inferior  forms  and  motives,  from  which  it  has 


EFFECT  OF  CLASSICAL  ART. 


123 


never  since  emerged,  while  the  printed  word  has  acquired  a 
greater  authority  each  successive  century  of  its  existence. 

Although  printing  affected  the  entire  relation  of  art  to  civil- 
ization by  its  function  of  substituting  abstract  for  concrete  idea, 
out  of  art  itself  there  came  a  revolution  which  transformed  its 
outward  aspects,  and  turned  it  into  other  directions  ;  a  revolution 
forced  on  it  by  literature,  which  had  opened  anew  to  the  Eu- 
ropean mind  the  long  closed  philosophies,  poetry,  and  histories  of 
ancient  Greece  and  Rome.  When  Raphael  wrote  to  Count  Cas- 
tiglione,  "  I  would  fain  revive  the  beautiful  forms  of  antiquity," 
he  tersely  expressed  the  universal  desire  of  the  cultivated  classes 
of  Italy  of  his  time  to  recreate  classical  art  and  knowledge, 
partly  from  weariness  of  the  mediaeval,  the  wider  sphere  science 
was  attaining,  and  its  tendency  to  substitute  naturalism  for  spirit- 
uality in  art,  and  in  part  because  the  excessive  assertion  of  the 
Church  in  doctrine,  joined  to  its  license  of  action,  had  reacted  in 
thoughtful  minds  in  two  ways — one  set  vainly  wishing  to  reform 
the  Church  ;  another,  and  that  which  wielded  its  power,  to  use  it 
simply  as  an  instrument  to  forward  their  personal  schemes  of  am- 
bition or  pleasure,  while  at  heart  scoffing  its  tenets,  and  ridiculing 
its  ceremonies.  No  secular  princes  were  more  unscrupulous  in 
morals  and  politics,  or  greater  hypocrites  than  the  popes  at  this 
juncture.  Concubinage,  simony,  blasphemy,  poisonings,  and 
crimes  of  every  degree  of  depravity,  perpetrated  under  cover  of 
intrigues  and  blandishments,  such  as  only  the  base  side  of 
the  Italian  intellect  is  capable  of  conceiving,  were  the  com- 
mon order  of  things.  It  is  only  necessary  to  name  the  Bor- 
gian,  Farnesian,  and  Medicean  popes,  to  recall  an  appalling 
picture  of  wickedness,  sometimes  braving  the  sunlight,  but 
usually  veiling  itself  in  an  artistic  magnificence  and  riotous 
luxury,  which  fascinated  minds  whose  congenial  proclivities 
were  tempered  by  no  moral  sensibilities.  When  these  high- 
priests  of  religion  were  not  ferocious  in  their  passion  to  raise 
themselves  or  their  illicit  children  to  the  grade  of  temporal 
princes,  inveigling  and  slaughtering  those  who  resisted,  they 
gave  rein  to  grotesque  indecencies  which  showed  how  utterly 
they  had  thrown  off  religious  restraints.  Leo  X.  amused  him- 
self with  tossing  monks  in  blankets,  —  doubtless  he  thought 
that  the  best  use  he  could  put  them  to  —  and  foot-races  of 
naked  men.^ 

1  One  of  his  statutes  decrees  that  if  an  ecclesiastic  publiclj'  cursed  God, 
ridiculed  Christ,  or  said  obscene  things  about  him  or  the  Holy  Virgin,  he  was  to 


124 


S  T.  PETER'S. 


The  great  fact,  however,  as  affecting  art  was,  that  with  these 
demoralized  rulers,  embued  with  the  sensuality  rather  than  the 
beauty  of  classical  life,  the  sincere  worship  of  God,  such  as  had 
been  indicated  in  preceding  styles  of  architecture  and  art  in 
general,  was  changed  into  the  only  sincerity  they  were  still  capa- 
ble of ;  namely,  the  worship  of  themselves.  Nero,  Tiberius,  and 
Caligula  made  themselves  gods,  and,  by  decrees  of  the  Roman 
Senate,  compelled  worship  to  be  paid  them  on  that  score.  True, 
Caligula  generously  made  his  horse  pontiff,  while  Nero,  with 
equal  self-appreciation,  shared  his  divinity  with  a  monkey.  But 
the  ambition  of  their  papal  successors,  satiated  with  divine  honors 
as  the  vicegerents  of  God,  was  most  concerned  to  secure  rever- 
ence on  the  basis  of  earthly  distinctions.  Religion  was  made  a 
political  blind  to  keep  the  masses  loyal.  I  am  so  disgusted 
with  the  lives  of  most  of  the  popes  and  princes  who  were  con- 
temporary with  the  Renaissance  —  not  of  art  as  the  French 
critics  employ  this  term,  including  the  mediaeval  epoch,  but  in 
reference  to  the  revival  of  pagan  styles  —  that  I  scarcely  have 
patience  to  allude  to  them  at  all.  But  it  was  their  patronage 
that  fashioned  the  taste  of  this  period,  and,  in  conjunction  with 
printing  and  preaching,  revolutionized  the  art  of  Christendom. 
Good,  however,  has  come  to  the  world  out  of  their  wickedness, 
Religious  opinion,  whenever  it  had  been  supreme,  had  shown 
itself  intolerant  alike  to  the  liberal  culture  that  comes  of  free 
study  and  the  growth  of  civic  independence.  The  skepticism 
of  the  popes  promoted  a  spread  of  knowledge  and  a  latitude 
of  tastes  which  their  piety  would  have  repressed ;  while  their 
ambitions  and  that  of  the  secular  sovereigns  to  form  powerful 
states  on  the  principle  "  c'est  moz,"  eventually  enlarged  the  influ- 
ence of  the  subject,  and  led  to  the  supremacy  of  civil  over  the- 
ological law,  to  humanity's  gain.  No  thanks  to  the  sovereigns, 
however ! 

Fn  e^^^st^'  glance  at  the  changes  brought  about  in 

Feter^s.  '  architecture  by  the  Renaissance,  and  the  uses  it  was 
put  to.  The  truth  and  beauty  of  classical  forms,  rightly  un- 
derstood and  applied,  I  have  already  admitted.  Further,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  the  genius  of  architects  like  Brunelleschi, 

be  fined  one  fourth  of  his  income.  There  was  a  sliding  tariff  for  blasphemy 
or  other  sins  which  could  be  made  lucrative  to  the  pope's  exchequer.  In  Ger- 
many, previous  to  the  Reformation,  the  only  concern  of  the  priests  was,  not  to 
conceal  their  fornications,  but  how  to  outwardly  reconcile  their  having  children 
with  their  clerical  functions  and  duties. 


ST.  PETER'S. 


125 


Buonarotti,  Raphael,  Bramante,  San  Gallo,  Sansovino,  and 
Wren,  was  not  merely  capable  of  reviving  them  in  much  of 
their  original  spirit,  but  also  of  adapting  them  to  new  uses  and 
ideas.  They  could  not  transfer  to  them  the  spiritual  essence 
and  functions  of  the  Gothic,  but  they  reared  magnificent  edi- 
fices especially  suited  to  material  pomp  and  luxury,  whether 
of  church  or  state,  and  of  tastefully  decorating  them  in  accord- 
ance with  their  purposes,  their  motives  being  chiefly  drawn 
from  the  classical  element,  or  executed  in  a  manner  congenial 
to  it.  '  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  is  the  grandest  and  richest  type  of 
the  modern  classical,  imperial  architecture,  in  dimensions,  fea- 
tures, and  aim,  as  illustrating  the  universal  power  and  absorption 
of  the  world's  riches  and  homage,  for  which  the  political  popes 
strove.  Strictly  speaking,  it  is  a  monument  of  papacy  without 
religious  significance  ;  as  an  object  of  intellectual  wonder  per- 
haps unrivalled.  I  write  of  it  rather  as  it  was  finally  meant 
to  be  by  Michael  Angelo  than  as  it  actually  is  in  many  of  its 
details,  which,  if  not  shams  in  material,  are  often  tasteless,  mis- 
placed, and  incongruous,  disturbing  the  grandiose  impression 
which  would  otherwise  be  left  on  the  mind.  Great  geniuses  sel- 
dom have  an  opportunity  to  carry  out  their  conceptions  unfettered 
by  the  caprices  of  those  who  contribute  the  means,  or  unharmed 
by  the  incapacity  of  the  workmen  who  execute  them.  Hence, 
to  adequately  realize  their  intentions,  we  must  divest  them  by 
an  effort  of  will  of  all  foreign  matter  and  subsequent  devia- 
tions, particularly  if  the  subject  in  question  belong  to  the  com- 
posite classical  styles  of  architecture,  which  little  learning  and 
any  blunder  is  sure  to  ruin  in  point  of  taste.  The  Gothic  may 
be  rude  in  masses  and  details,  with  strange  contrasts  of  orna- 
mentation and  forms  such  as  nature  exhibits,  or  intricately 
delicate  and  light  in  traceries,  surcharged  with  carvings  and 
colors,  mysteries  within  mysteries,  and  yet  appear  the  more 
bewitching  from  the  free  exercise  of  so  many  minds  and  hands 
moved  by  a  common  impulse.  Taste  here  has  a  roving  com- 
mission, with  wings  to  search  out  aerial  surprises.  But  in  the 
other  case  it  is  shackled  by  a  despotic  law  of  constructive 
fitness,  unity,  and  narrowness  of  selection,  not  always  clearly 
penetrated  by  those  who  profess  obedience  to  it. 

We  have  only  to  contrast  the  remarkable  buildings  of  the 
Gothic  and  Renaissance  styles  to  discover  at  once  the  gulf 
that  separates  them.  St.  Paul's  of  London  and  the  Pantheon 
at  Paris  are  noteworthy  examples  of  scholastic  formalism  and 


126 


THE  CLASSICAL-RELIGIOUS. 


aristocratic  egoism,  grand  but  barren  monuments,  as  regards 
religion,  while  the  Madeleine  Church  of  the  last  named  city 
is  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  spiritual  incapacity  of  a  Greek 
temple  for  a  Christian  house  of  worship.  The  more  ornate  and 
sumptuous  it  is,  the  more  jDOsitively  it  betrays  its  lack  of  devo- 
tional feeling.  Made  simple,  it  harmonizes  with  teaching  or 
preaching  addressed  to  the  reason  ;  all  the  better  because  noth- 
ing spirit-moving  finds  a  home  on  its  colorless,  conventional 
wall-surfaces  or  areas,  when  unbroken  by  arch  or  column. 
This  specially  commends  it  for  a  lecture-room,  and  is  jDerhaps 
the  cause  of  its  being  in  great  favor  in  Protestant  countries  for 
meeting-houses,  in  which  divine  service  is  restricted  to  a  prayer, 
hymn,  and  sermon.  The  form  and  proportions  of  a  pagan 
temple  are  adapted  to  these  purposes ;  but  after  strijoping  it  of 
its  sacred  images,  beautiful  altars,  and  fine  sculpture,  there  re- 
mains in  its  interior  little  of  what  gave  it  an  aesthetic  character 
or  quickened  the  emotions.  Everything  now  depends  on  the 
preacher,  nothing  on  the  edifice  ;  and  it  can  be  used  for  politi- 
cal, secular,  or  sacred  callings  without  compromise  of  taste,  be- 
cause there  is  none  to  offend.^ 

One  extreme  of  Protestantism  was  guided  by  a  sound  prin 
ciple  of  selection  in  choosing  the  temple-type  of  architecture. 
None  other  so  completely  dissevered  itself  from  all  necessity 
of  a  ritual,  was  freer  from  association  with  Roman  Catholic  my- 
thology and  ceremonies  against  which  it  protested,  or  was  more 
readily  converted  to  the  intellectual  needs  of  societies  who  had 
as  sincere  a  regard  for  abstract  as  their  religious  opponents  had 
for  emotional  teaching ;  one  thinking  and  proving,  the  other 
seeing  and  believing.  The  fitness  of  one  style  was  the  unfit- 
ness of  the  other,  because  the  sentiments  connected  with  each 
were  diverse  and  opposing.  For  real  warmth  of  heart  and 
spirituality  of  organic  form,  we  must  look  back  to  mediaeval 

1  In  Catholic  countries,  human  dwellings  and  occupations  in  an  humble  way 
often  cluster  about  the  walls  of  cathedrals,  growing  into  them  as  naturally  as 
ferns  to  forest-trees,  and,  while  receiving  strength  and  protection,  contributing  to 
the  picturesqueness  of  the  entire  mass.  There  is,  too,  a  moral  fitness  in  man's 
nestling  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  symbol  of  his  faith,  that  counterbalances  the 
architectural  disfigurement  that  sometimes  happens.  But  nothing  can  atone  for 
the  religious  and  aesthetic  incongruity  of  the  Protestant  habit  of  turning  portions 
of  churches  into  shops  and  warehouses,  especially  as  has  been  seen  in  the  Park 
Street  edifice,  Boston,  the  basement  once  being  an  "ice-cream  depot"  while  a 
dentist's  sign  hung  to  a  column  of  the  porch,  advertising  unmistakably  a  copart- 
nership between  God  and  Mammon. 


WHOLESOME  REACTION. 


127 


cathedrals,  like  those  of  York,  Salisbury,  Strasbourg,  Rheims, 
Amiens,  Chartres,  St.  Stephen's,  and  their  numerous  compeers. 
The  Renaissance  in  Catholic  countries  and  Protestantism  else- 
where put  a  stop  to  these.  While  their  ideas  and  tastes  remain 
in  the  ascendant,  none  others  will  be  built  like  them.  But 
both  the  Renaissance  and  Protestantism  have  done  good  service 
to  men  in  their  respective  ways.  Protestantism  was  a  whole- 
some reaction,  requisite  to  arouse  mind  from  its  proneness  to 
live  only  in  its  emotions  and  passions,  and  to  set  it  thinking 
about  justice,  truth,  science,  and  discovery.  Hence,  although  the 
aesthetic  and  even  spiritual  sense  for  a  while  be  drifted  in  an 
opposite  direction  by  the  incoming  tide  of  materialistic  pro- 
gress, yet  I  believe  a  healthy  mental  equilibrium  will  at  last  be 
established,  resulting  in  fresh  architectural  types  of  so  fine  a 
nature  as  to  put  a  stop  to  regret  for  those  of  the  past.  There 
are  hopeful  symptoms  in  the  growing  recognition,  especially  in 
England,  of  the  fundamental  virtues  of  Gothic  forms,  and  their 
capacity  to  respond  to  our  more  spiritual  and  imaginative  wants, 
while  justice  is  likewise  done  to  the  classical  by  putting  them  to 
those  uses  for  which  their  nature  best  qualifies  them.  But  this 
is  rather  an  anticipation  of  the  future  than  the  exact  case  at 
this  moment.  Knowledge  meantime  is  sifting  and  proving, 
teaching  taste  how  to  act  and  enjoy.  That  this  may  be  guided 
aright,  it  concerns  civilization  to  keep  its  eyes  open  to  the  mis- 
chief done  to  it  by  the  Renaissance  after  it  passed  from  the 
control  of  great  masters  into  the  hands  of  mean  men. 

The  evil  from  it  was  greater  in  Catholic  than  in  Protestant 
lands,  because  as  regards  art  there  was  more  to  lose,  while  the 
saving  principle  of  abstract  teaching  and  the  new,  utilitarian 
fashion  of  church  buildings,  to  which  the  classical  type  was 
easily  adjusted,  did  not  apply  at  all.  I  will  not  cite  Spain  in 
this  connection.  Ever  since  its  destinies  passed  out  of  the  keep- 
ing of  the  Moors,  it  has  been  as  isolated  and  exceptional  a 
country  in  what  relates  to  art,  science,  and  religion  as  Japan, 
without  influence  on  general  civilization,  while  it  deliberately 
ruined  its  own  from  bigoted  and  suicidal  motives.  Although 
Italy  was  the  seat  of  the  papacy,  it  has  not  sinned  in  this  stupid 
manner.  Criminal  in  act  and  low  in  desire  it  often  was,  but 
it  never  altogether  forgot  its  aesthetic  constitution  transmitted 
from  antiquity,  and  a  certain  political  breadth  or  religious 
license  of  view,  shutting  its  eyes  to  immaterial  points,  which 
habit  also  came  from  its  large-headed  ancestry.     Rome  be- 


128 


POLICY  OF  ITALIAN  POPES. 


comes  sanguinary  only  when  its  power  is  really  in  jeopardy. 
A  mere  imbecile  conformity  of  rite  and  confession  in  the  minu- 
test detail,  to  substantiate  a  "divine-right"  despotism^  sanction- 
ing the  foulest  wrongs  by  blasphemous  religious  formula,  after 
the  fashion  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons,  never  obtained  in  Italy. 
Whenever  pope  and  prince  sinned  or  revelled,  they  did  it  fairly 
and  squarely  before  the  world,  without  other  sacrilegious  non- 
sense than  the  usual  magniloquent  customs  and  hypocritical 
speech  common  to  sovereign-worship  everywhere.  With  them 
conformity  was  more  a  question  of  habit  than  principle.  They 
were  not  over  curious  to  pry  into  what  might  be  underneath 
the  external  act.  This  shrewd  policy  of  not  hearing  or  seeing 
what  there  was  no  positive  occasion  to,  permitted  in  art,  litera- 
ture, and  social  intercourse  a  scope  unknown  to  other  Latin 
races.  Neither  the  Inquisition  nor  religious  persecution  ever 
got  supreme  control  in  Italy,  as  in  Spain  and  France.  A 
restless  selfhood  inherited  from  the  old  Roman  citizen,  basing 
itself  on  an  instinctive  clinging  to  certain  personal  rights,  or 
rather  privileges,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  as  for  instance, 
to  have  bread  and  shows  gratis ;  to  speak  and  act  their  minds 
in  squibs,  pantomime,  or  satire ;  to  be  exacting  and  revengeful 
in  matters  that  directly  concerned  their  pleasures  and  desires ; 
childlike  except  in  innocence,  such  has  long  been  character- 
istic of  Italian  peoples.  Their  aesthetic  temperament  is  easily 
excited  and  directed.  Hence  the  patronage  of  the  ruling 
classes  decided  in  the  main  the  public  taste ;  and  the  more 
facilely  because  of  the  sympathy  between  the  nobles  and  com- 
mon people  in  matters  of  entertainment  and  public  spectacles. 
After  the  mediaeval  epoch,  there  was  no  independent,  popular 
action  in  affiiirs  of  art.  Savanarola's  appeal  to  the  people, 
though  not  without  transient  effect,  was  the  last  effort  made 
to  keep  art  from  going  over  soul  and  body  into  the  keeping  of 
those  imbued  with  the  tastes  and  politics  of  the  Renaissance, 
which  yearly  grew  more  indifferent  to  the  wishes  and  welfare 
of  the  masses. 

Formerly,  governments  were  many,  frequently  changing,  and 
much  controlled  by  the  commercial  and  manufacturing  classes, 
who  in  matters  of  art  acted  in  harmony  with  the  clergy.  All 
ranks  were  ambitious  of  distinguishing  themselves  by  the  pro- 
motion of  works,  like  the  Loggia  of  the  Piazza  Signoria  at 
Florence  and  the  Tabernacle  of  Orgagna,  which  should  reflect 
credit  on  their  particular  liberality  and  taste,  besides  being  use- 


RESULT  OF  TYRANNY. 


129 


ful  and  edifying  to  the  public.  Their  best  skill  and  means  were 
given  to  the  honor  of  religion  and  the  glory  of  their  country. 
But  with  the  Renaissance  there  came  about  an  increased  consoli- 
dation of  petty  commonwealths  and  democratic  towns  into  small 
states,  in  which  the  elective  rights  of  the  people  were  either 
wholly  extinguished  or  only  admitted  under  the  control  of  abso- 
lute rulers,  unscrupulous  as  to  the  method  by  which  they  at- 
tained power,  and  made  it  hereditary  in  their  families.  The 
elimination  of  the  popular  element  in  politics  of  necessity  af- 
fected art,  causing  a  complete  change  in  its  spirit  and  forms  for 
the  worse,  most  conspicuous  in  architecture.  Tyrants  are  more 
given  to  reflecting  themselves  in  art  than  even  democracies,  be- 
cause the  latter  may  be  very  busy  about  every- day  interests, 
while  with  the  former,  unless  there  is  war,  it  is  the  only  grand 
passion  by  which  they  may  glorify  themselves.  The  character 
of  most  of  the  new  rulers  being  particularly  infamous,  the  art 
they  fostered  was  in  keeping  with  the  man-idolatry  and  the 
sensualities  to  which  it  was  chiefly  dedicated.  I  refer  to  a  sub- 
sequent phase  of  the  Renaissance,  when  the  race  of  Rococo 
great,  original  masters  had  died  out.  Executive  skill 
was  never  wholly  wanting  in  the  artist,  nor  pedantic  learning  in 
amateurs,  but  the  feeling  behind  both  was  ignoble  and  shallow. 
Art  became  academic,  cold,  and  external.  If  it  were  not  sub- 
jected, as  in  Spain,  to  a  religious  inquisition,  it  had  to  conform  to 
a  political  one,  even  more  debasing  in  spirit,  though  less  narrow 
in  taste.  Every  branch  of  it  grew  to  be  artificial,  formal,  and 
forced.  There  was  no  genuine  inspiration  of  natural  or  popular 
ideas  ;  nothing  to  touch  the  heart,  excite  the  imagination,  or  in- 
struct the  mind.  Affectation  replaced  sincerity,  attitudinizing 
succeeded  to  grace  and  dignity  of  movement,  and  material  big^ 
ness  was  thought  to  be  equivalent  to  moral  and  gesthetic  great- 
ness. The  standard  of  right  and  wrong  in  art  was  violently 
reversed  for  the  people. 

Where  there  is  extravagant  power,  there  must  be  extravagant 
patronage.  With  this  lever  one  base  mind  can  make  a  thou- 
sand even  baser  than  his  own.  The  Italian  subjects  who  had 
taken  the  places  of  Italian  citizens,  learned  to  accept  with  due 
thankfulness  and  admiration  the  vicious,  pompous  art  given 
them  to  incite  to  greater  reverence  of  rank  and  riches  ;  and 
finally  their  tastes  were  so  perverted  that  they  never  have  had 
since  a  genuine  appreciation  of  anything  that  was  not  spectacu- 
lar, or  savored  of  state  or  personal  ostentation,  and  mere  tech- 
9 


180 


DEGRADED  RENAISSANCE. 


nical  dexterity.  After  the  extinction  of  the  primitive  religious 
and  classical  schools,  and  the  sensuous  triumphs  of  color  of 
those  of  Venice  and  Parma  had  been  frittered  into  inaneness  by 
mechanical  imitators,  there  was  left  nothing  worthy  of  the 
name  of  Italian  art.  The  sincerity,  purity,  and  truth  of  ex- 
pression that  came  in  with  the  native-born  schools  of  Niccola 
Pisano  and  Giotto,  afterwards  strengthened  by  the  epic  nat- 
uralism of  Masaccio  and  perfected  by  Leonardo ;  the  clas- 
sic grace  and  beauty  of  Raphael,  and  the  supernal  force  and 
idea  of  Michael  Angelo ;  in  fine,  all  that  made  Italy  as  original 
as  famous  in  art,  came  to  a  premature  end. 

Before  the  Christian  era  a  similar  event  occurred,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  introduction  of  Greek  forms,  made  fashionable  by 
Roman  emperors,  swayed  by  the  same  motives  that  governed 
their  petty  successors  and  imitators.  In  the  case  of  antiquity, 
however,  the  beauty  of  the  Greek  idealized  the  conceptions  of 
the  native  artist,  so  that,  for  a  brief  period,  the  union  was  a 
happy  one.  It  was  a  natural  one  also,  on  account  of  a  com- 
mon faith.  The  difference,  therefore,  was  merely  in  treatment, 
not  in  motive.  Finally  the  indigenous  Etruscan  feeling  was 
overborne  by  aristocratic  influences  of  a  foreign  growth,  largely 
Asiatic,  which  destroyed  all  that  was  good  and  perfect  in  art 
generally,  precisely  as,  fifteen  centuries  later,  the  revival,  not  of 
pure  antique  forms,  but  of  the  imported  Grecian  in  their  deca- 
dence, manipulated  to  meet  the  corrupt  tastes  of  the  defunct 
pagan  imperialism,  quenched  the  more  wholesome,  indigenous 
art  of  Italian  mediaavalism.  This  reappearance  of  the  same 
destructive  agency,  invited  by  a  similar  aristocratic  will  for  the 
same  vainglorious,  selfish  aims,  is  a  striking  coincidence  of 
history.  The  last  master  of  original  and  sturdy  individuality, 
realistic  in  bias,  who  made  a  vigorous  protest  against  the  cur- 
rent, bastard  classicalism,  not  without  effect  as  seen  in  the 
Neapolitan  school  of  painting,  was  Salvator  Rosa.  Consider- 
ing the  strength  of  the  academic  conventualism  by  which  he 
was  obstructed,  his  life  may  be  called  heroic.  After  him,  how- 
ever, the  flood.  Every  trace  of  Gothic  freedom  of  invention 
and  mediaeval  sincerity  of  execution  vanished.  Then  and 
since.  Renaissance,  chiefly  of  the  most  degraded  character, 
has  overrun  Italy,  to  the  ruin  of  whatever  was  innately  noble 
and  fine  in  the  native  mind. 

I  will  give  a  brief  list  of  its  architectural  vices,  reserving  the 
defects  of  sculpture  and  painting  for  a  later  application,  al- 
though the  family  relation  is  a  close  one  in  the  three. 


ROCOCO  ARCHITECTURE. 


131 


Ecclesiastical  architecture  in  Italy  since  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury has  been  of  almost  uniform  ugliness  or  misapplication  of 
rules  and  spirit,  the  churches  of  the  Jesuits  being  the  most 
cumbered  with  decorative  finery.  An  effort  is  made  to  entrap 
the  senses  through  the  lowest  avenues  of  gratification  and  de- 
ception. Religion  is  seen  either  as  a  splendid  show  or  a  super- 
stitious spectacle.  For  this  true  art  is  sacrificed.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  describe  the  extraordinary  facades  which  came  into 
fashion,  overloaded  with  columns,  whole  or  split,  doing  nothing ; 
equally  useless  pilasters  of  all  lengths,  stuck  wherever  there 
was  space ;  ornaments  without  meaning  or  purpose,  where  none 
were  needed ;  vulgar  grotesques  and  obscene  devils  conspicu- 
ous about  doors  or  windows,  made  hideous  by  the  violation  of 
classic  rule  and  beauty,  from  wantonness  of  incapacity ;  stupen- 
dous, ugly  urns  perched  on  highest  pinnacles,  threatening  the 
heads  of  those  who  look  up  to  them ;  clumsy,  smirking  saints, 
planted  like  stone  sentinels  or  juggling  acrobats  at  regular  in- 
tervals on  roofs  or  in  niches,  interesting  themselves  in  nothing 
in  earth  or  heaven ;  naked,  fat  boy-angels  or  gigantic  women, 
with  coarse  effrontery  of  limb  and  posture,  performing  gymnas- 
tic exploits,  or  reclining  in  impossible  positions  in  impossible 
places,  their  only  suggestiveness  being  one  of  alarm  lest  they 
fall  and  hurt  somebody  below,  and  their  sole  merit  their  con- 
structive uselessness,  and  want  of  anything  to  say  or  do  in  refer- 
ence to  their  being  where  they  are ;  veritable  sculptured  night- 
mares :  such  is  the  outer  look  of  many  churches.  If  pigs 
could  be  architects,  I  fancy  they  would  do  things  in  just  such 
a  wrong-headed  way,  from  sheer  spite  of  order  and  beauty. 

Interiorily,  the  confusion  becomes  more  confounded,  except 
that  the  architect,  though  doing  his  best,  does  not  always  suc- 
ceed in  spoiling  the  more  dignified  features  of  classical  ar- 
chitectm-e.  Their  effect,  however,  is  sure  to  be  hurt  by  pre- 
posterous upholstery,  relics,  shrines,  wax-figures,  gilt  and  tinsel 
properties,  to  show  off  the  popular  idols ;  tawdry,  bedizened, 
miraculous  dolls  and  pictures ;  bequests  of  ignorance  and  su- 
perstition, varying  from  old  clothes,  crutches,  daubs  of  pictures,  to 
pearls,  rubies,  and  diamonds ;  sham  and  real  jewelry ;  the  bones 
of  dead  men  made  more  precious  than  the  bodies  of  living  ; 
lies  preached  of  them,  and  the  Word  withheld  ;  man-millinery, 
changes  of  vestments,  the  lifting  or  letting  fall,  at  the  appointed 
time  and  place,  of  priests'  skirts  ;  buttoning  and  unbuttoning ; 
much  lace  and  embroidery,  tinkling  of  bells,  operatic  music, 


132 


ROCOCO  ARCHITECTURE. 


swinging  of  censers,  bowing,  kneeling,  pantomime,  dronings  and 
mutterings  in  a  dead  tongue,  making  tableaux  more  or  less  im- 
pressive, and  not  without  scenic  value,  but  as  art  degraded  to 
its  lowest  material  effects  and  vulgar  appeal ;  in  fact,  a  shifting 
spectacle  in  which  the  whole  and  parts  are  ingeniously  per- 
verted from  their  lawful  functions  to  aesthetic  falsities  and  spir- 
itual impositions.  To  put  art  and  religion  on  a  lower  level,  we 
must  fall  back  on  out-and-out  fetichism.  And  this  has  come 
from  the  evoking  of  a  spurious  paganism  by  the  heads  of  the 
Church  to  take  the  place  of  what  had  come  to  it  in  legitimate 
course  of  native-reared  art. 

The  ambition  of  the  baser  Renaissance  was  best  gratified  by 
sumptuosity  and  costliness ;  lavishness  of  rich  metals  and 
precious  stones  ;  by  dexterous,  complex  workmanship,  bronze 
curtains,  marble  draperies,  fantastic  tricks,  overdone  action,  and 
mechanical  surprises ;  in  fine,  by  artistic  harlotry  of  every  spe- 
cies, besides  a  senseless  theft  of  classical  objects  and  motives 
misapplied  in  fragments  or  in  wholes,  or  distorted  by  a  hap- 
hazard fancy  into  positive  ugliness.  Better  Quaker  homeli- 
ness, or  other  Protestant  architecture,  of  the  rigidest  Puritan 
type  and  frailty  of  material ;  even  the  pretentious  sort,  with  the 
sham  Gothic  steeples  astride  of  sham  classical  porticoes  and 
similar  constructive  incongruities.  If  there  were  not  so  much 
to  grieve  over  in  the  wasted  talent  and  riches  bestowed  on  the 
regenerate  Renaissance,  and  its  abject  servitude  and  igno- 
rance, one  might  laugh  heartily  at  the  ridiculous  figure  it  cuts. 
But  it  is  too  preposterous  an  exhibition  of  human  folly  to  be  so 
lightly  passed  over,  particularly  as  it  spread  in  various  degrees 
of  badness,  spoiling  the  public  taste  all  over  Europe,  emigrating 
to  America  in  a  mild  form,  and  finding  a  footing  wherever  aris- 
tocratic misrule  obtained. 

I  am  emphatic  in  my  condemnation,  because  the  feelings 
which  begot  its  meanest  aspects  yet  survive,  and  persist  in  dis- 
figuring the  earth  with  structures,  if  not  entirely  worthless  in  a 
moral  and  aesthetic  sense,  still  made  after  the  general  likeness 
of  the  base  Renaissance.  Where  a  public  is  indifferent  to  its 
architectural  life,  and  individuals  have  no  lively  sense  of  artistic 
fitness  or  unfitness,  the  direction  of  taste  is  left  to  professional 
men,  who  are  but  too  glad  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  least  pos- 
sible exercise  of  original  thought  or  study.  Hence  many  fash- 
ions continue  in  use  after  their  formative  spirit  has  died  out. 
This  is  the  case  with  the  style  in  question  in  some  places,  the 


BASTARD  RENAISSANCE. 


133 


United  States  of  America  for  instance,  the  rich  ordering  their 
houses  of  their  architects  as  they  would  clothes  of  a  tailor,  accept- 
ing without  question  whatever  design  is  given  them  as  being  the 
correct  thing  of  the  moment.  There  can  be  no  independent 
national  character  or  individualistic  expression  in  architecture, 
unless  it  re^jresents  the  real  life  of  a  people,  and  shapes  itself  in 
conformity  to  local  causes.  Imported  architecture  is  of  neces- 
sity a  misfit,  as  is  also  any  attempted  revival  of  styles  that  have 
lived  out  their  natural  existence.  The  Renaissance  failed  in 
the  outset,  from  its  mistaken  principle  of  action.  Instead  of 
striving  to  express  in  suitable  forms  the  new  civic  civilization, 
which  was  aiming  to  temper  religious  feeling  with  even-handed 
justice,  to  improve  the  material  condition  of  men,  and  to  dissem- 
inate knowledge,  it  went  back  after  obsolete  pagan  forms,  and 
tried  to  rival  the  production  of  men  born  under  an  altogether 
different  state  of  things.  One  glance  at  the  Gothic,  which 
it  was  pushing  aside,  might  have  taught  it  that  it  could  have  no 
genuine  life  without  a  genuine  soul  of  its  own.  To  compete 
successfully  with  the  antique,  it  had  to  revive  ancient  ideas  as 
well  as  images.  In  some  degree,  among  a  few,  this  was  done,  but 
more  from  a  spirit  of  pedantry  or  infidelity  to  their  own  religion 
than  from  any  sincere  love  of  the  old.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  best  Renaissant  art  conceived  after  the  antique, 
was  inferior  to  its  model.  The  common  sort  was  a  mere  trav- 
esty. A  connecting  link  existed  in  certain  features,  derived 
from  sentiments  common  to  both,  as  they  were  made  the  instru- 
ments of  pompous  ignorance,  fashionable  empiricism,  or  an  ab- 
solute will.  Superficial  nobodies  and  restless  tyrants  are  always 
greedy  of  sensations.  The  repose  of  profound  knowledge  and 
consummate  art  is  unintelligible  and  fatiguing  to  them.  What 
no  one  else  could  or  would  do,  that  to  them  is  an  incitement 
to  do.  An  Egyptian  princess  builds  a  pyramid  with  tlie  price 
of  her  favors.  A  Roman  emperor  gilds  the  oats  of  his  favor- 
ite horse,  and  makes  him  a  deity.  Another  cuts  off  the  heads 
of  the  sculptured  gods,  and  puts  his  own  in  their  places.  Nero 
makes  a  bronze  image  of  himself  one  hundred  feet  high,  at  a 
cost  of  nearly  two  million  dollars.  Cleopatra  drinks  pearls. 
Hadrian  uses  the  reveime  of  the  world  to  make  a  monstrous 
pleasure-ground,  containing  copies  of  remarkable  edifices  of  all 
countries,  and  puts  to  death  the  architect,  Apollodorus,  for  crit- 
icising his  taste.  Philip  II.  of  Spain  impoverishes  his  domin- 
ions to  build  a  vast  palace-tomb  in  the  shape  of  a  gridiron. 


134 


MISCHIEF  OF  FALSE  ART. 


Another  royal  charlatan,  Louis  le  Grand,  starves  France  to 
lodge  himself  "  like  a  gentleman."  The  Dukes  of  Tuscany  were 
delighted  with  monstrosities,  coarse  conceits,  and  obscene  gro- 
tesques. A  Grecian  satyr  is  a  joyous  waif  of  nature,  delighting 
in  his  free,  sensuous  life ;  the  Renaissant  image  of  his  kind  is 
simply  embodied  lechery.  An  antique  Venus  meant  perfect  fe- 
male beauty  ;  the  mediaeval  Magdalen,  moral  purification ;  but  the 
modern  Venus  or  Magdalen,  beginning  with  Titian's  and  end- 
ing with  those  of  our  time,  is  a  seductive  woman,  who  repents 
only  to  sin  again  with  fresh  zest. 

Fools  in  palaces  are  invariably  complemented  by  boors  in 
churches,  as  regards  art.  To  Michael  Augelo's  Pieta  there 
was  given  a  mock  crown  and  necklace.  Brocade  robes  and 
tin  head-gear  were  nailed  to  the  pictures  of  the  Madonna  and 
saints  by  the  old  masters,  as  may  be  seen  in  "  Santo  Spirito  " 
at  Florence.  The  finest  frescoes  got  whitewashed  or  ruthlessly 
destroyed.  This,  in  brief,  is  the  quality  of  taste  and  feeling, 
begotten  by  powers  unlimited,  alike  in  pagan  and  Christian 
countries.  The  bad  man  stamps  his  selfishness  or  ignorance  on 
the  whole  world  within  his  reach. 

A  true  artist  is  the  product  of  his  period ;  the  false  one,  of 
another's  will.  Genius,  free  to  act,  foreshadows  the  idealisms 
and  hopes  of  a  people  collectively,  and  becomes  the  type  of  its 
inmost  soul ;  Goethe  in  Germany,  Shakespeare  in  England, 
Dante  in  Italy,  Dore  in  France,  and  all  great  masters,  in  their 
several  ways  represent  their  countrymen.  The  mischief  of 
the  false  artist  is  that  he  has  no  guiding  will  of  his  own,  but  is 
a  being  moulded  to  order,  bribed  or  persuaded  by  external 
pressure.  Hence,  as  the  Renaissance  came  into  greatest  vogue 
at  the  most  flourishing  period  of  petty  and  great  tyrants,  and 
just  after  the  death  of  the  greatest  masters,  it  took  whatever 
shape  was  j)rescribed  to  it,  without  right  of  appeal.  Once  set 
art  agoing  in  a  wrong  direction,  and  it  degenerates  with  accel- 
erating velocity,  because,  like  fire,  it  feeds  its  own  course. 
There  is  no  more  striking  contrast  of  its  good  and  evil  than 
what  occurs  in  Italy  when  the  artist  was  the  genuine  product 
of  his  time,  and  when  he  was  the  mercenary  workman  of  des- 
pots. The  distinction  holds  with  more  precision  than  most 
generalizations,  though  there  are  some  exceptions  on  each  side, 
and  some  interblendings  of  freedom  and  servility,  or  noble  and 
ignoble  art,  in  one  artist  or  school  of  either  period.  Every 
community  has  its  momentary  madnesses,  just  as  every  despot 


HONEST  RENAISSANCE. 


135 


has  his  moments  of  magnanimity  or  common  sense.  But  the 
profound  moral  of  the  history  of  art,  that  to  be  great  and  good 
it  must  be  free  and  true,  cannot  be  too  deeply  impressed  on 
the  minds  of  a  people  which,  like  the  Americans,  has  its  art 
yet  to  create. 

Honest  Renaissant  architecture  has  qualities  which  Honest 
adapt  it,  when  judiciously  applied,  to  state  and  civic 
uses.  We  need  not  give  it  up  because  kings  perverted  its 
forms.  It  specially  commends  itself  to  modern  life  for  various 
purposes.  Externally,  from  its  palatial  aspect,  where  orderly 
dignity  and  beauty  are  desired,  typical  of  public  authority 
and  use,  or  as  an  expression  of  refined  luxury  and  scholarly 
acquirements.  Like  the  Gothic,  it  has  never  had  its  complete 
chance  of  development  and  application.  Internally  it  is  more 
manageable  for  modern  domestic  life,  and  requires  less  original 
thought.  Gothic  architecture  compels  the  architect  to  conceive 
and  invent.  Many  intricate  mechanical  problems  are  to  be 
solved,  and  aesthetic  combinations  to  be  effected.  Whereas  the 
Renaissant  styles  are  composed  out  of  the  classical,  and  ad- 
justed to  certain  definable  demands  of  comfort  and  elegance. 
Success  is  a  question  rather  of  taste  in  composition  than  of 
experimentive  creation.  Most  modern  Gothic  buildings  for  do- 
^mestic  purposes  are  commonplace  imitations  of  obvious  fea- 
tures of  the  mediaeval  ones,  and  not  to  be  compared  in  con- 
venience and  handsomeness  with  those  constructed  after  the  best 
designs  of  the  Renaissance. §  There  is  ample  scope  for  both 
styles.  Either  may  be  used  to  advantage  according  to  what  is 
needed,  if  the  architect  will  but  inform  himself  of  the  meaning 
and  value  of  their  respective  forms,  and  acquire  the  skill  requis- 
ite to  their  aesthetic  solidarity. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MODERN  ITALIAN  ART,  LIFE,  AND  RELIGION. 

HERE  are  certain  fundamental  links  in  Schools  and 
the  art  of  all  periods,  arising  from  agen-  lap. 
cies  which  cause  one  epoch  to  overlap  or  reappear  in 
another  in  outward  form,  if  not  in  living  spirit.  But 
before  proceeding  further,  I  will  recall  some  of  our 
recent  conclusions  to  show  their  bearing  more  emphatically.  1 
stated  in  substance  that  the  great  ancient  and  mediaeval  periods 
of  religious  art  could  not  be  repeated  ;  that  in  them  high  art, 
as  it  had  been  comprehended,  had  reached  its  climax  ;  and  that 
attempts  to  revive  it  on  its  old  foundations  must  fail  despite 
individual  merits.  I  will  now  enlarge  on  this,  making  my 
propositions  as  terse  as  possible,  that  they  may  be  easily  kept 
in  mind  to  be  tested  as  occasions  happen. 

Depressing  The  depressing  effect  of  books  on  art  is  felt  chiefly^ 
'Soks^'^  in  its  highest  aspects.  In  the  inferior  functions  print- 
ing favors  a  spread  of  art  and  an  enlargement  of  its  scope  in 
common  matters,  for  it  makes  lis  history  and  purpose  better 
known,  and  stimulates  its  production  as  a  branch  of  polite  cul- 
ture. Nevertheless,  printing  tends  to  take  it  out  of  its  former 
spiritual  kingdom,  in  which  it  reigned  supreme  as  the  popular 
type  of  man's  loftiest  idealisms,  lowering  it  from  the  position  of 
a  creator  and  educator  to  that  of  an  illustrator  and  decorator. 
Ideas  were  mostly  given  up  to  books,  as  soon  as  the  Reformation 
gave  a  little  intellectual  liberty  to  the  people.  They  dethroned 
high  art,  because  printing  served  them  better  and  cheaper. 

The  people  were  right,  as  indeed  they  are  in  general  when 
ever  their  moral  judgment  has  a  fair  clmnce  of  asserting  itself. 
I  do  not  say  that  whatever  they  do  is  the  best  that  could  be 
done,  but  that  their  instincts,  when  free  to  act,  incline  them  to  a 
shrewd  comprehension  of  what  is  conducive  to  their  actual  wel- 
fare. Here  particularly  their  instincts  were  keen,  because  art, 
except  for  a  short  period  in  Greece  and  during  fitful  flashes  of 
democratic,  religious  enthusiasms  in  the   mediteval  ages,  had 


PROTESTANT  AND  CATHOLIC. 


137 


been  associated  in  their  destinies  either  with  ecclesiastical  or 
state  despotisms.  Ranging  from  unwholesome  extremes  of  as- 
cetic fanaticisms  to  gross  sensualities,  it  had  too  often  served 
idolatry  or  tyranny.  Experience  showed  them  that  neither 
prince  nor  priest  would  voluntarily  sanction  anything  which  con- 
flicted with  their  interests.  Sometimes,  actuated  by  honorable 
motives,  they  had  indeed  kept  art  up  to  a  lofty  or  popular 
standard.  But  the  people  had  had  no  permanent,  independent 
choice  as  to  its  forms  or  spirit.  A  strict  Catholic,  even  at  this 
late  day,  receives  without  demur  whatever  his  superior  prescribes, 
holding  himself  as  personally  unaccountable  as  if  it  were  an  or- 
dinance of  God.  Church  or  State,  not  he,  is  responsible  for  the 
bigotries  and  falsities  they  impose  on  him.  But  the  Protestant 
being  trained  to  exercise  his  private  judgment,  is  responsible  in 
his  individual  capacity.  This  applies  as  well  to  matters  of  taste 
as  opinion.  The  practical  effect  is  reversed  in  the  two  systems. 
In  one  the  executive  force  of  life  centres  in  the  civil  or  eccles- 
iastical authority,  which  gives  the  initiative  to  all  public  acts  ; 
while  in  the  other  the  will  of  the  people  decides  their  direction 
and  character.  This  fact  by  itself  accounts  for  the  realistic  spirit 
and  democratic  tastes  that  art  assumed  as  it  passed  from  the 
hands  of  the  few  into  those  of  the  many,  the  wishes  and  pleasures 
of  the  masses  necessarily  becoming  the  chief  sources  of  inspira- 
tion. While  their  intellectual  condition  remains  low  there  can 
be  no  special  stimulus  to  the  artist  beside  gain.  The  pojjular 
inclination,  keeping  art  at  its  own  average  of  mental  ability  and 
taste,  bribes  even  talent  to  mould  itself  according  to  the  whim 
of  the  moment. 

Religion,  as  a  sensuous  or  ascetic  movement,  has  f^JL^i- 
ceased  to  govern  civilized  men.  Protestantism  turned  ism  on  art. 
it  more  into  an  inward  conviction  and  moral  action,  restricting 
faith  to  a  few  abstract  doctrines.  Much  of  the  reaction  against 
an'  idolatrous  ritual  was  directed  against  religious  art  in  general, 
and  brought  it  into  disrepute  with  the  conscience.  What  in 
one  stage  of  ideas  was  a  sacred  duty  to  do  and  foster,  in  another 
became  a  sin.  The  effect  first  on  conscience,  and  secondly  on 
art,  may  be  appreciated  by  watching  the  different  emotions  with 
which  a  zealous  pietist  of  the  Roman  Church  and  a  member  of 
a  Protestant  sect  regard  sacred  effigies  and  symbols.  The  edifi- 
cation of  the  one  is  the  blasphemy  of  the  other.  Neither  the 
theorist  nor  an  artist  can  completely  realize  in  himself  mental 
conditions  foreign  to  those  in  which  he  is  born  and  trained.  He 


138 


IMITATIONS  FUTILE. 


may  conceive  of  them  as  he  imagines  a  strange  spectacle  or  past 
events,  never  sure  that  he  is  consistent  and  accurate  throughout, 
and  quite  certain  that  he  cannot  infuse  into  his  mind  the  gen- 
uine feelings  of  their  age.  This  obstacle  precludes  any  absolute 
rej^roduction  of  effete  art.  Any  such  effort  is  so  much  absolute 
loss  to  the  rightful  art  of  the  time,  beside  misdirecting  or  affront- 
ing the  public  feeling.  An  artist,  therefore,  is  unwise  in  leav- 
ing his  true  sphere  to  try  to  rival  one  for  which  he  has  no 
legitimate  training.  A  Polynesian  makes  a  canoe-paddle  after 
an  original  design  that  the  most  skilled  European  workman 
would  in  vain  attempt  to  equal,  because  he  has  no  real  connec- 
tion with  its  uses  or  pleasure  in  ornamenting  it.  The  imitations 
of  Cashmere  shawls,  Persian  carpets,  Chinese  porcelain,  or 
any  other  semi-barbarous  artistic  work  by  the  manufactures  of 
France  and  England  are  unsatisfactory  for  the  same  reason. 
Reproduction  of  noble  architecture  after  its  creative  spirit  has 
left  the  world  is  equally  a  failure.  We  cannot  revive  temples 
and  cathedrals,  for  we  do  not  require  them  as  the  intense  ex- 
pression of  our  religion.  Our  love  of  them  is  the  liking  of  the 
amateur  for  whatever  is  artistically  true  and  beautiful.  Seeing  no 
prospect  of  a  return  to  classical  or  mediaeval  conditions  of  civili- 
zation, either  in  Catholic  or  Protestant  countries,  I  am  persuaded 
that  moderns  finally  will  limit  their  desires  towards  all  such 
edifices  to  preserving  them  as  relics  of  a  past  forever  gone,  and 
seek  out  for  themselves  something  which  shall,  when  perfected 
in  a  correspondingly  sincere  and  lovely  manner,  express  their 
own  idealisms. 

The  reason  why  there  can  be  no  religious  art  in  Protestant 
countries,  analogous  to  the  old,  is  clear ;  but  the  dying  out  alto- 
gether of  that  which  only  a  few  centuries  ago  was  the  great 
glory  of  the  Catholic  faith  is  not  distinctly  seen,  unless  we  look 
into  the  aesthetic  trickery  by  which  the  priesthood  try  to  dis- 
guise the  truth.  Their  artifices  once  understood  only  make  the 
fact  more  obvious  that  religious  art  has  died  out  in  those  lands 
where  it  was  first  created,  or  else  degenerated  into  mechanical 
and  lifeless,  academic  forms,  worthless  as  to  spiritual  significance, 
and  in  general  valueless  in  an  aesthetic  sense,  if  not  absolutely 
repulsive,  either  from  sensual  effrontery  or  an  affectation  of  sen- 
timents which  no  longer  inspire  the  artist.  Some  exception 
there  is  in  the  labors  of  a  few  sincere  men,  like  Flandrin 
in  France  and  Overbeck  in  Germany,  who  have  attempted  to 
revive  a  genuine  religious  art,  and  of  ecclesiastics  who  have 


RELIGIOUS  FEELING  NOT  EXTINCT.  139 


enthusiastically  labored,  with  partial  success,  to  build  Gothic 
churches  in  the  old  fashion  ;  but  they  have  no  weight  with  the 
people  at  large,  nor  do  they  in  any  perceptible  degree  modify  the 
prevailing  materialism  of  art  and  peoples.  Religious  feeling  is 
not,  however,  extinct.  It  simply  changes  its  teacher  and  modes 
of  manifestation  wherever  free  to  act.  Indeed,  its  convictions 
become  firmer  as  it  grows  less  passionate  and  more  enlightened. 
But  while  Protestantism  has  been  opposed  to  any  aesthetic  de- 
velopment, Catholicism  in  the  mean  time  has  been  dividing  its 
multitude  into  two  classes  —  the  profoundly  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious, and  those  imperfectly  educated  who  doubt  or  disbelieve 
altogether,  but  whose  training  impels  them  to  a  ritual  conformity 
that  has  no  salutary  effect  on  their  souls,  and  in  many  instances 
is  only  done  when  dying,  from  a  latent  fear  that  otherwise  it 
might  go  harder  with  them.  Few  have  the  consistent  courage 
of  old  Perugino,  who  refused  absolution  on  his  death-bed  because 
he  wished  to  test  the  effect  of  leaving  earth  without  taking  the 
last  sacrament  of  the  church  to  which  he  would  not  confide  his 
spiritual  destinies.  Like  many  others,  he  confused  the  acts  of 
the  professors  with  the  principles  of  Christianity,  while  his  im- 
agination was  not  likely  to  be  affected  by  his  own  mercenary 
handicraft.  Some  of  his  pictures  have  a  touch  of  gross  satire  on 
high  personages  in  the  celestial  hierarchy,  or  else  he  was  culpa- 
bly indifferent  to  the  rules  of  propriety  in  composition.  An 
artist  is  not  prone  to  superstition  or  asceticism.  Not  only  is  his 
profession  favorable  to  intellectual  liberty,  but  I  mistrust  that  the 
close  attention  to  external  nature  inseparable  fi:'om  the  modern 
systems  of  art,  like  the  kindred  exigencies  of  physical  science, 
bias  the  mind  towards  materialism  ;  at  all  events,  to  freethinking 
or  indifference  as  regards  sectarianism.  Exceptions  of  the  Fra 
Angelico  type  are  uncommon,  and  due  chiefly  to  idiosyncrasies 
of  temperament  against  which  their  artistic  nature  is  in  perpet- 
ual struggle.  The  careers  of  the  greatest  of  the  old  masters 
prove  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  bigot,  or  even  what  is 
called  a  "  professor "  of  religion,  to  execute  religious  art  of  a 
high  cliaracter.  It  was  requisite,  however,  that  they  should 
thoroughly  comprehend  its  motives.  This  is  a  matter  of  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  sympathy  and  appreciation,  quite  apart 
from  pure  dogma,  or  that  intensity  of  devotion  which  is  the  fruit 
of  enthusiastic  faith.  Some  writers  claim  that  religious  art  is 
the  exact  reflection  of  the  character  and  convictions  of  the  artist, 
and  that  his  design  and  coloring  have  a  greater  symbolical  than 


140 


TEMPERAMENT  IN  ART. 


aesthetic  intent.  As  well  might  we  say  that  an  actor  should  be 
the  original  of  his  part  in  order  to  personate  it  properly.  Both 
artist  and  actor  must  be  able  to  feel  their  subjects,  and  have 
an  executive  capacity  corresponding  to  their  importance.  Their 
temperaments  qualify  their  performances,  sometimes  in  harmony 
with  inspiring  motives,  but  often  contrary  to  them.  Few  of 
the  great  masters  were  rigid  in  their  religious  observances, 
or  scrupulous  as  to  the  stricter  moralities.  Raphael  painted 
the  most  glorious  Madonna  the  world  has  seen,  the  spend- 
thrift, scapegrace  Sodoma  the  most  lovely  Eve,  Leonardo  the 
greatest  composition  of  the  most  profound  sacramental  mys- 
tery, Albert  Durer  the  most  subtle  allegories,  and  Michael 
Angelo  the  most  sublime  Biblical  scenes  and  personages,  simply 
because  their  imaginations  were  better  able  to  conceive  and 
their  hands  to  execute  them  than  those  of  other  men,  irrespec- 
tive of  personal  piety.  At  heart  they  were  true  men,  highly 
appreciative  of  life  and  the  world  around  them,  delightsome 
companions,  averse  to  bigotries  and  austerities,  not  inquisitive 
as  to  speculative  theology  or  tenacious  of  dogmas,  but  devoting 
their  entire  energies  to  their  sesthetic  pursuits.  He  who  won 
the  greatest  fame  for  his  Holy  Virgins  had  the  most  exquisite 
delight  in  the  amorous  love  of  woman.  The  fervid  devotion  ex- 
pressed in  Giotto's  pictures  is  wonderful ;  but  he  joked  somewhat 
coarsely,  according  to  our  notions.  Leonardo  was  the  beau- 
ideal  of  an  accomplished,  open-handed  man  of  fashion,  beloved 
by  beautiful  women  and  noble  men.  Poor  Albert  Durer  had 
too  much  mundane  worriment  to  find  repose  in  an  ideal  spiri- 
tual world.  While  Michael  Angelo's  religious  like  his  political 
opinions  were  earnest,  they  were  not  current  with  the  Church 
or  his  patrons.  His  austere  isolation  was  caused  by  want  of 
congenial  society  and  bodily  infirmity. 

Great  mental  power  joined  to  well  balanced  sensuous  and 
moral  faculties  round  off  genius,  and  enable  its  possessor  to  do 
noble  work,  in  whatever  direction  he  may  be  impressed.  The 
image  of  his  subject  is  reflected  in  his  imagination,  as  water  re- 
ceives and  gives  back  whatever  overshadows  it.  Execution  or 
style  varies  according  to  habits  of  thought  and  work  ;  but  if  there 
be  a  general  equilibrium  of  brain  and  temperament,  as  with 
Holbein,  Leonardo,  and  Raphael,  the  artist  can  distinguish  him- 
self in  whatever  field  he  selects,  while  the  spectator  will  find 
greatest  delight  in  that  which  best  responds  to  his  own  mental 
condition.    Universal  masters  have  a  lively  joy  in  artistic  work 


CLOSE  OF  RELIGIOUS  ART. 


141 


of  every  kind,  religious  or  profane,  idealistic,  realistic,  ascetic,  sen- 
suous, sensual,  or  even  erotic.  Their  constant  aim  is  consummate 
and  varied  art,  finding  something  sesthetically  good  in  everything 
God  creates  or  permits.  Hence  they  have  a  satisfaction  for  all 
tastes.  It  is  a  one-sided,  narrow  criticism  that  condemns 
Raphael  for  abandoning  pure,  religious  art  for  classical,  and 
ascetic  for  sensuous  or  realistic  motives,  because,  when  called  on 
for  them  in  tlie  maturity  of  his  genius,  he  showed  himself  greater 
than  ever.  Greatness  is  best  fulfilled  by  completeness.  There- 
fore he  is  greatest  who  displays  the  most  varied  capacity  and 
thoroughness.  There  are  occasions  when  a  great  artist  is 
forced  out  of  his  legitimate  course,  and  although  producing  mas- 
terly, characteristic  work,  makes  apparent  his  want  of  entire 
sympathy  with  or  perfect  comprehension  of  his  topic.  We  see 
somewhat  of  this  in  the  sacred  compositions  of  the  luxurious, 
magnificent  Titian ;  those  of  the  sensuous,  sensitive  Correggio ; 
the  cold-blooded  academic  electicisms  of  the  Carracci  and  their 
scholars ;  the  devotional  acerbities  of  the  glowing,  diaphanous, 
but  earthly-minded  Murillo,  and  the  more  powerful  designs  of 
the  stronger,  aristocratic  Velasquez ;  in  the  vulgar  types  of  the 
religious  art  of  the  pleasure-loving,  ambitious  Rubens  ;  in  the 
obtrusive  coarsenesses  and  colored  strength  of  the  dramatic, 
plotting  Rembrandt;  in  the  incoherent,  sparkling  eccentricities 
of  the  solitude-loving  egoist  Turner  ;  and  in  the  extravagances 
of  the  versatile,  erratic  Dore.  Each  of  them  manifests  ineffec- 
tual attempts  to  reduce  fundamental  qualities  of  mind  and  desire 
to  an  orderly  subjection  to  motives  foreign  to  their  instinctive 
choice,  or  which  were  selected  because  of  opportunity  for  some 
coveted  technical  triumph. 

The  decay  of  devotional  feeling  in  the  public  mind  operated 
to  its  destruction  in  art.  With  Raphael  and  his  compeers  the 
career  of  religious  art  closed.  Their  distinguished  successors 
brought  other  fashions  into  vogue.  The  seductive,  sensuous 
schools  they  founded,  prepared  the  way  for  those  artificial,  de- 
based styles,  fostered  by  a  rococo  taste,  which  in  the  end  brought 
art  to  its  present  wretched  condition,  or  want  of  any  condition 
whatever,  in  Italy  and  Spain. 

The  connection  between  the  so-called  religious  art  connection 
of  modern  Catholicism  and  its  spiritual  condition  of  llulZll^^ 
mind  is  so  intimate  that  I  must  speak  of  both  in  vir-  ^^^/^"'^ 
tually  the  same  terms.    How  much  it  can  still  affect  people. 
the  individual,  I  will  illustrate  by  a  statement  made  to  me  by 


142      IDENTITY  OF  PAGANISM  AND  CATHOLICISM. 


an  accomplished  diplomat,  educated  by  the  Jesuits.  His  character 
was  an  undisguised  compound  of  wordly  insincerity  and  naive 
devotion  strange  to  Protestant  notions,  but  not  singular  in  the 
light  of  his  theological  training.  With  the  usual  inconsistency 
between  practice  and  theory  of  those  most  free  with  women,  he 
adored  the  Virgin  as  his  special  protective  deity.  So  fervid  at 
times  were  his  prayers  to  her  image  that  he  "  saw  her  wink  " 
in  approval.  This  was  earnestly  and  frankly  told  as  a  fact 
which  edified  him  greatly.  It  is  a  fair  sample  of  the  kind  of 
hold  the  Roman  Church  keeps  on  cultivated  minds,  by  training 
them  to  see  religion  only  through  the  avenues  of  superstition 
and  idolatry. 

The  condition  of  Roman  Catholic  worship  in  Italy  to-day  is 
not  unlike  that  of  paganism  in  its  final  decline.  There  has  not 
been  a  decisive  line  of  ritual  demarkation  between  them  since 
Christianity  lost  its  early  simplicity  and  sincerity.  But  the 
Renaissance  made  it  more  than  ever  difficult  to  decide  where 
veritable  Christian  forms  and  ideas  begin,  and  those  of  heathen- 
ism end.  Worship  has  hinged  on  the  substitution  of  one  set 
of  names  and  observances  for  others  of  a  similar  disposition, 
rather  than  on  a  radical  mental  change.  Criminal  pagan  cus- 
toms were  kept  up  long  after  the  official  establishment  of  the 
new  religion.  1  As  late  as  the  fifth  century  the  populace  would 
rush  from  the  churches  during  divine  service  to  secure  the  best 
places  in  the  circuses  and  amphitheatres  before  the  games  began. 
Even  now  the  masses  readily  could  be  led  back  to  their  old 
rites  and  superstitions  by  the  priests.  Fifteen  centuries  in 
their  charge  have  left  the  populace,  as  respects  knowledge  and 
habits,  very  much  as  it  was  in  the  times  of  the  Ceesars.  Idola- 
trous ceremonies  and  imposing  pageants  are  still  the  common 
features  of  a  religion  which  discountenances  thought,  and  favors 
ignorance  and  despotism;  which,  controlling  education,  leaves 
four  in  five  of  the  population  unable  to  read  or  write ;  which 
opposes  alike  material  prosperity  and  mental  improvement  in 
the  people ;  whose  gifts  are  fresh  canonizations  and  canons,  an 
increase  of  supernatural  machinery  that  still  further  stultify  and 
degrade  human  intellect,  or  of  a  new  dogmas  barren  of  moral 
benefit  and  repugnant  to  reason ;  additional  inducements  to  idle- 
ness and  beggary  ;  fresh  taxes  to  keep  whole  communities  of  men 

1  The  worship  of  Apollo  contmued  until  a.  d.  529,  at  Monte  Cassino,  although 
it  was  the  seat  of  a  bishopric ;  his  temple  and  altar  being  overthrown  by  St. 
Benedict,  when  he  founded  a  convent  on  their  site. 


MIS  GOVERNMENT  OF  THE  CHURCH.  143 


and  women  in  soul-wilting  isolations  and  avocations,  the  evils 
of  which  are  felt  in  every  fibre  of  society  ;  that  extorts  or  be- 
guiles wealth  from  industry  to  appropriate  it  to  works  which 
carry  with  them  no  blessing,  not  even  a  wholesome  use  or  com- 
fort for  the  human  species  ;  ecclesiastical  sumptuosities  of  build- 
ing, and  strutting  in  vain  honor  of  a  dead  past  and  mocking 
neglect  of  the  living  present ;  while  to  every  prayer  of  humanity 
for  liberty  to  improve  its  condition  at  its  own  expense  and  volition 
the  vicar  of  Christ  replies  "  Non  possumus.''  What  might  not 
Italy,  the  favorite  of  Nature,  become  if  but  one  half  the  effort 
that  is  given  to  keeping  her  wretched  and  ignorant  was  be- 
stowed in  making  her  happy  and  enlightened  ! 

The  positive  and  negative  misgovernment  by  church  and 
state,  to  which  she  has  been  long  subjected,  can  only  be  rightly 
understood  by  direct  acquaintance  with  the  people  themselves. 
Since  the  party  of  action  has  undertaken  to  work  out  a  more 
satisfactory  civilization,  instead  of  being  chagrined  by  the  short- 
comings incidental  to  all  new  enterprise,  I  am  astonished  at  the 
good  done  in  so  little  time,  and  disposed  to  trust  to  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  reawakened  national  life  for  further  progress.  His- 
torical associations  mingled  with  aesthetic  enjoyment  and  delight 
in  Italian  scenery,  not  to  speak  of  ecclesiastic  and  aristocratic 
beguilements,  so  veil  the  land  with  romance  that  the  American 
mind,  beyond  all  others,  is  disposed  to  overlook  the  chronic  dis- 
eases which  consume  the  population.  The  picturesque  or  polite 
may  be  a  charitable  masker  ;  but  often  it  is  a  cunning  deceiver, 
making  gay  and  lovely  on  the  surface  what  is  filth  and  ruin  un- 
derneath. 

To  get  the  truth,  our  senses  must  be  schooled  to  observe  the 
disagreeable  quite  as  much  as  the  agreeable.  Civilization  re- 
quires its  mean  back  door  as  well  as  stately  front.  Its  first 
fruits  should  be  that  personal  modesty  and  cleanliness  which  is 
ranked  among  the  virtues  next  to  godliness.  When  any  clergy 
make  religion  to  consist  in  outward  show  and  dumb  conformity, 
the  inward  graces  have  to  shift  for  themselves.  While  the 
greatest  pains  have  been  taken  in  Italy  to  cause  the  people  to 
worship  the  divinities  of  the  new  mythology  and  to  pay  "  tithe 
and  cummin,"  they  have  also  been  encouraged  to  act  out  their 
animal  and  emotional  natures.  If  premiums  had  been  offered 
for  improvidence,  untidiness,  indolence,  and  shiftlessness,  the  re- 
sults scarcely  could  have  been  worse.  Habits,  however  disas- 
trous to  character  and  thrift,  have  passed  unrebuked  so  long  as 


144         ITALY  SYNONYMOUS  WITH  BEAUTY. 


the  people  did  not  acquire  the  inconvenient  one  of  thinking  and 
working  for  themselves. 

The  dark  Italy  is  synonymous  with  beauty.    But  her  loveli- 

side  of  Italy.  ^^^^  associatcd  with  unmentionable  filth  and  blatant 
immodesty.  No  locality  is  too  sacred,  pleasant,  or  interesting 
to  be  spared  defilement,  unless  under  vigilant  surveillance  or 
quasi  protected  by  the  symbol  of  salvation,  the  most  common 
use  of  which  now  is,  to  scare  away  by  an  appeal  to  their  super- 
stitions those  dirty-minded  wretches  who  are  inaccessible  to  direct 
ideas  of  propriety.  Even  these  crosses  are  not  always  able  to 
fulfil  their  sanitary  and  beneficent  purposes.  The  condition  of 
public  ways,  ruins,  and  out-door  sights  in  general  prove  that  there 
is  no  public  disapprobation  of  their  defilement,  nor  of  the  wan- 
ton immodesty  attending  it,  which  puts  human  beings  almost  on 
the  footing  of  animals  as  regards  bodily  habits.  If  the  rulers 
and  clergy  had  extended  their  toleration  of  the  most  offensive 
nuisances  to  eye  and  nose,  equally  to  freedom  of  mind,  these 
material  evils,  as  in  northern  countries,  would  have  been  abated. 
But  it  has  been  a  more  congenial  occupation  to  amuse  the  pub- 
lic with  out-door  fetes,  and  get  up  tableaux  and  spectacles  in 
churches,  than  to  preach  cleanliness  of  mind  and  body,  purify 
the  atmosphere,  or  elevate  the  moral  and  intellectual  tone  of 
the  community.  I  doubt  if  it  ever  occurs  to  those  who  could 
reform  the  public  manners  that  the  present  state  of  things  is 
not  wholesome  and  proper. 

What  also  are  we  to  think  of  their  neglect  of  duty  in  view 
of  the  cruelty  towards  animals  and  pitiless  massacre  of  the 
smallest  birds?  The  brutality  exercised  on  horses  makes  it 
painful  to  enter  a  public  vehicle,  the  whips  being  the  sole 
reliance  of  di'iv^ers,  who  either  stare  in  stolid  astonishment  at  any 
rebuke,  or,  momentarily  acquiescing,  politely  hint  that  the  re- 
prover must  be  an  eccentric  fool. 

Imagine  the  state  of  conscience  where  a  mother  in  straitened 
circumstances,  who  has  deprived  herself  of  necessaries  of  life 
to  educate  an  only  son,  after  having  secured  him  a  petty  clerk- 
ship, cheerfully  consents,  as  a  natural  and  proper  act,  to  be  unrec- 
ognized by  her  child  in  the  street,  lest  her  humble  appearance 
should  compromise  him  with  his  companions ! 

Where  priestly  control  is  absolute,  there  ignorance  and  su- 
perstition must  abound.  At  Milicia,  in  Sicily,  the  peasantry 
are  taught  to  believe  that  whenever  the  Madonna  goes  out  in 
a  procession,  she  has  the  power  to  stop  before  any  house,  and 


ITALIAN  MORALS. 


145 


refuse  to  move  on  until  the  inmates  give  her  money.  As  for  St. 
Anthony,  he  burns  the  cabin  of  any  peasant  who  neglects  to 
make  him  an  offering  on  his  fete,  while  the  pious  St.  Francis 
soundly  thrashes  those  who  fail  in  their  vows  to  him.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  rural  populations  sometimes  curse  and  imprison 
the  Mother  of  God,  when  their  crops  fail.  Even  in  compara- 
tively enlightened  Tuscany,  at  Montevarchi,  a  short  distance 
from  Florence,  three  drops  of  the  milk  of  the  Virgin  are  period- 
ically exhibited,  to  be  worshipped  and  to  extort  money.  Some 
religious  teachers  declare  baths  to  be  immoral.  Girls,  by  them, 
are  forbidden  to  learn  to  write,  lest  they  should  correspond  with 
those  to  whom  they  are  betrothed  or  with  whom  they  are  in  love. 
In  a  town  not  far  from  Naples,  a  Neapolitan  assured  me  he  could' 
not  find  one  inkstand.  An  intelligent  Italian  of  good  position,  on 
being  assured  that  what  he  was  saying  was  not  only  untrue,  but 
a  stupid  lie,  naively  replied,  "  O,  you  English  have  such  a  preju- 
dice for  truth ! "  In  a  certain  district  of  Sicily  and  perhaps 
elsewhere,  the  deformed  or  maimed  are  viewed  as  cursed  of  God: 
A  blind  gentleman  of  remarkable  musical  talents,  to  which  he- 
owes  his  present  independent  position,  born  of  a  good  family, 
says  that  he  was  thrust  out  of  it  when  a  child,  without  resources- 
or  instruction,  while  his  sound  brothers  and  sisters  were  reared 
in  luxury.  Whenever  the  maternal  instinct  prompted  his 
mother  to  be  kind  to  him,  she  always  confessed  it  as  a  sin, 
and  prayed  for  forgiveness. 

Among  the  lowest  classes,  old  women  are  apt  to  be  considered 
as  abominations.  Instead  of  respect,  age  and  sex  too  often  in- 
cite jests  and  abuse  ;  partly  owing  to  the  common  dislike  of 
physical  decay  and  dread  of  death,  and  in  part  because  of  the 
inability  of  the  victims  to  resent  in  kind.  In  points  of  aesthetic 
and  natural  beauty,  Florence  is  the  queen  of  cities.  Her 
journals  assert  that  the  Italians  are  the  most  civilized  of  races. 
Yet  there  is  a  degree  of  cowardly  malignity  in  some  of  its  popu- 
lation which  could  scarcely  obtain  among  savages.  An  elderly 
woman  of  irreproachable  character,  whom  I  have  known  for 
years  in  her  humble  but  respectable  avocation,  on  going  recently 
to  one  of  the  popular  theatres  and  seating  herself  in  the  cheaper 
places  used  indiscriminately  by  both  sexes,  was  kicked  on  her 
legs  and  otherwise  maltreated  in  a  sly  way,  accompanied  by 
obscene  ridicule  from  the  men  about  her,  who  immediately  ex- 
cused themselves  like  poltroons  as  soon  as  they  ascertained  that 
her  grandson  was  at  hand.    If  she  had  been  an  apparently  un- 

10 


146 


ITALIAN  FREETHINKING. 


protected  girl  the  attentions  would  have  been  different  but  not 
less  insulting.  There  might  be  equal  barbarism  in  a  low  Anglo- 
Saxon  audience,  but  the  spectators,  instead  of  enjoying  it  or 
remaining  quiet,  would  instinctively  take  the  part  of  the  weak ; 
at  all  events  insist  on  fair  play. 

I  admit  and  admire  the  current  "  gentilezza  "  of  Italian  man- 
ners ;  still  more  the  humility,  respect  for  superiors,  honesty,  and 
general  good  deportment  of  some  of  the  "  old  school  "  peasantry, 
trained  in  feudal  habits.  But  this  latter  phase  of  character  is 
fast  disappearing,  and  the  former  diminishing.  In  itself  it  is 
only  an  aesthetic  accomplishment,  not  necessarily  reposing  on 
any  moral  foundation.  In  citing  facts  I  adhere  to  those  whose 
evidence  is  incontestable  and  admitted  by  candid  Italians  them- 
selves. They  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  higher  standard  of 
justice,  truth,  and  manhood,  in  Protestant  than  in  Catholic 
training,  giving  a  conscience  and  independence  to  the  one  which 
is  unknown  and  unmissed  in  the  other.  While  this  difference 
in  moral  education  continues,  the  results  on  the  national  habits 
must  be  what  they  are.  Indeed,  radical  defects  of  character 
and  deficient  intelligence  seem  not  to  be  considered  by  the 
priesthood  as  within  their  province  to  remedy,  but  any  shifting 
of  the  theological  or  political  weathercock  is  watched  with  in- 
tense anxiety.  A  symptom  of  the  generally  low  moral  con- 
'  sciousness  may  be  found  in  the  application  of  the  term  for  bad, 
cattivo  —  in  its  derivative  meaning,  caught  or  found  out,  not  evil, 
as  in  English.  A  lie  is  popularly  held  to  be  the  same  as  the 
truth  until  detected.  The  social  and  religious  foundations  of 
society  being  thus  loose-jointed,  it  is  not  surprismg  that  so  much 
suspicion  and  hypocrisy  come  to  the  surface.  Freethinking 
elsewhere  is  usually  an  honest  conviction  or  doubt,  and  its 
possessors  live  up  to  their  ideas.  Not  so  in  Italy.  Among  the 
better  instructed  there  is  slight  belief  in  the  actual  dogmas  of  the 
Church.  Yet  it  is  rarely  the  case  that  the  most  daring  skeptic 
in  his  last  sickness  does  not  reconcile  himself  to  the  priests. 
Even  the  excommunicated  Cavour  so  far  forgot  the  principles 
of  his  life,  as  to  do  so  when  dying.  The  reason  is  apparent. 
At  present  there  are  no  profound  spiritual  convictions,  or  prin- 
ciples of  duty  to  replace  the  worn-out  ecclesiastical  materialisms 
into  which  the  offices  of  the  Church  have  degenerated,  and  to 
dissipate  the  current  superstitions  with  their  concomitant  fear. 
Nominal  duties  are  fulfilled  when  an  honorable  place  is  given 
at  home  to  sacred  images,  and  a  deference  shown  them  in  public. 


CLIMATE  AND  ART. 


147 


Nowhere  are  crucifixes  and  madonnas  more  common  than  in 
haunts  of  vice,  being  viewed  as  talismans,  to  be  reverenced  oi* 
scoffed,  according  as  they  are  Relieved  to  favor  the  nefarious 
pursuits  of  the  inmates.  Doubtless  the  Bible  among  the  least 
enlightened  Protestants  has  a  sort  of  fetish  value,  but  there  is 
not  a  vicious  person  of  any  sect  but  would  feel  reproved  by  its 
presence,  nor  one  who  would  admit  it  into  any  scheme  of  wick- 
edness. Such  is  the  turpitude  of  conscience  of  the  lowest  Ital- 
ian class,  that  they  demand  the  sanction  of  their  idols,  especially 
for  brigandage,  frequently  proposing  to  share  with  them  the 
results  of  their  crimes.  It  is  a  class,  too,  over  which  alone  the 
priesthood  has  influence.  What,  then,  must  have  been  the  ex- 
tent of  their  neglect  of  the  primary  obligations  of  their  faith, 
where  these  things  exist ! 

Climate  and  art  are  mainly  responsible  for  the   „,  . 

^  «^      ^  (jrlamour  of 

glamour  of  the  Northern  mind  in  regard  to  the  ti^e  Northern 
Southern.  Probe  its  civilization,  and  its  unsound-  gard  to  the 
ness  appears  at  once,  especially  as  regards  woman. 
She  is  either  a  pet  or  a  laboring  animal,  but  an  animal  al- 
ways. I  generalize,  of  course,  permitting  every  reader  to  note 
his  own  exceptions,  as  I  do  mine,  but  maintaining  the  sound- 
ness of  the  conclusion  as  a  whole.  The  peasant  husband  gives 
his  wife  and  daughters  field  labors  as  toilsome,  often  more  so, 
than  he  takes  for  himself,  while  whatever  they  may  earn  inde- 
pendent of  him,  he  disposes  of.  It  is  common  to  see  the  finer 
organized  sex  doing  the  labors  of  draft-cattle,  or  carrying  heavy 
burdens,  their  male  relatives  meantime  resting  or  playing  games. 
Italian  men  are  not  unkind  at  heart,  only  thoughtless  and  self- 
ish in  these  respects ;  a  deportment  generated  from  the  lees  of 
heathenism  which  the  Church  has  never  seriously  set  itself  about 
cleansing.  Even  its  charities  are  sometimes  so  administered  as 
to  pervert  the  moral  instinct.  Convenient  foundling  asylums 
tempt  parents  who  are  not  indigent  or  criminal  to  abandon  their 
offspring  in  their  tender  years,  to  be  eventually  reclaimed  if  it 
be  desirable  ;  if  not,  left  to  destiny.  What  that  often  is,  may 
be  conjectured  from  the  soubriquet  of  Herod  the  Great,  given 
to  a  sujDerintendent  of  the  principal  institution  of  this  nature 
in  one  of  the  chief  cities. 

So-called  gallantry  may  gild  the  manners  of  the  men  of  the 
higher  classes  toward  women,  but  this  specious  devotion  comes 
from  and  is  directed  towards  the  animal  in  both.  There  is  an 
untranslatable  freedom  of  expression  in  society,  connected  with 


148 


LOW  STATE  OF  WOMEN. 


elegant  manners,  which  betokens  a  lack  of  moral  sensitiveness. 
Journals  of  repute  publish  tales  or  feuilletons  in  series,  which 
can  scarcely  be  excelled  in  grossness  of  sensualism,  direct  and 
indirect,  and  would  not  be  tolerated  in  English  or  American 
families.  There  is,  too,  a  latitude  in  the  use  of  religious  terms 
that  grates  upon  Protestant  ears,  but  which  the  euphony  of  the 
language  so  mitigates  or  covers  ujd  after  the  first  surprise ;  the 
ear  delighting  in  what  the  moral  sense  would  reject.  Piazza 
Santo  Spirito  or  Via  dall'  Inferno,  sound  differently  from  Holy 
Ghost  Square  or  Hell  Street,  independent  of  associations ;  but 
an  Anglo-Saxon  would  hesitate  at  such  a  use  of  words,  embody- 
ing the  most  profound  mysteries  of  his  creed.  In  fact,  North- 
ern and  Southern  ideas  of  decency  and  propriety  vary  as  much 
as  the  climates :  the  one  being  based  more  on  the  moral,  and 
the  other  on  a  conventional  sense.  At  heart,  the  ^'•jeunesse  doree^^ 
of  all  countries  are  much  alike,  but  I  believe  they  have  yet  in 
America  or  England  to  accustom  themselves  in  their  orgies  to 
be  waited  on  by  naked  girls  ;  or  that  any  fashionable  coterie  of 
those  countries, /as^  as  their  fastest  women  may  be  in  their 
manners,  would  dare,  as  has  been  done  in  Italy,  to  give  a  ball 
at  which  complete  nudity,  with  the  exception  of  a  mask  to  the 
face,  was  the  condition  of  admittance.  I  have  heard  such  an 
one  described  by  a  high-bred  lady,  as  a  novel  and  interesting 
affair.  The  "  cancan  "  too,  is  sometimes  danced  by  a  select 
circle  of  aristocratic  amateurs. 

But  the  low  status  of  women  in  the  eyes  of  the  men  is  often 
manifested  in  the  public  streets  by  the  middle  classes,  who  are 
guiltless  of  the  vices  of  the  aristocracy,  and  mean  well,  but  are 
so  obtuse  as  not  to  be  conscious  of  their  rudeness.  They 
evidently  are  brought  up  to  consider  that  a  woman  alone  has 
no  rights  a  man  is  bound  to  respect.  I  have  seen  an  Amer- 
ican lady  rudely  forced,  by  a  well-dressed  man,  to  take  the 
outside,  as  a  carriage  was  rapidly  passing  in  a  crowded,  narrow 
thoroughfare,  by  which  she  had  a  very  narrow  escape  from  be- 
ing run  over,  and  the  only  excitement  it  created  was  an  oath 
from  the  driver,  and  astonishment  from  her  assailant,  that  any 
woman  should  dare  to  be  in  their  way. 

On  another  occasion,  while  raining,  a  lady  tried  to  pass  a 
man  lazily  seated  in  a  doorway,  with  his  limbs  occupying  the 
sidewalk.  To  avoid  soiling  herself  in  the  gutter,  she  pushed 
gently  by  him.  He  screamed  after  her  such  obscene  abuse,  as 
would  have  caused  him  to  have  been  lynched  in  America,  wind- 


DOMESTIC  SYSTEM. 


149 


ing  up  with,  "  if  she  was  his  mistress,  she  would  not  have  dared 
take  such  a  liberty  with  him." 

There  is  also  the  well-known  numerous  class  of  men,  young 
and  old,  who  dog  women  that  have  the  courage  to  go  out  by 
themselves  on  any  errand,  sometimes  from  sheer  lewdness,  but 
often  out  of  puerile  mischief,  ejaculating  silly  compliments,  or 
hissing  foulness  in  their  ears. 

These  and  similar  traits,  which  every  traveller  may  witness, 
evince  the  low  estimation  in  which  woman  is  still  held  in  Italy, 
and  sometimes  cause  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  to  come  into  indig- 
nant collision  with  the  Latin,  to  its  surprise,  because  of  the 
different  moral  view,  or  want  of  one,  peculiar  to  it.  Neither 
fine  art  nor  a  lovely  climate  compensates  for  this  social  condition. 
And  there  can  be  no  improvement  unless  young  Italy  learns 
that  woman  has  something  else  in  her  nature  besides  the  an- 
imal. How  hopeless  any  immediate  change  for  the  better 
seems  to  the  best  youth,  can  be  known  only  on  discussion  with 
them.  Even  when  admitting  the  superiority  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  training,  they  declare  they  would  not  trust  their  own  sis- 
ters or  wives  with  the  slightest  liberty.  The  domestic  system 
is  one  of  exclusion,  seclusion,  and  repression ;  stagnating  to  the 
mind,  but  stimulating  to  desire  and  imagination,  with  degrading 
consequences  to  both  sexes,  and  all  the  worse  because  of  the 
want  of  those  intellectual  resources,  which  largely  obtain 
throughout  England,  Germany,  and  America.  The  notions 
that  still  govern  the  domestic  status  of  the  women  of  Latin 
races,  are  largely  infiltrated  with  Oriental  ideas  of  isolation  and 
indifference  to  mental  development. 

Every  observant  traveller  notes  the  vacant  stare,  and  appar- 
ent mental  impotency  of  the  multitude  of  aged  persons  of  both 
sexes,  especially  in  Florence ;  a  stolidity  of  brain  caused  by  the 
prevailing  disuse  of  the  intellectual  functions.  The  mind  ac- 
tually shrivels  from  lack  of  wholesome  exercise. 

Southern  races  are  more  temperate  and  tractable  than  North- 
ern. Their  vices  are  more  insidious  and  wide-spread,  but  their 
deportment  in  general  less  violent  and  brutal.  Civilization  has 
had  them  longer  in  hand.  Roman  Catholicism  having  shown 
its  indisposition  to  reform  and  educate,  we  should  rejoice  in  the 
progress  of  the  popular  reaction,  even  if  its  first  aspect  is 
seemingly  hostile  to  the  state  religion.  When  criminal,  it  de- 
serves harsher  treatment  than  even  political  misgovernment, 
because  of  its  spiritual  power  and  assumptions.    In  the  towns 


150 


A  MODERN  "PAGUS: 


its  influence  is  more  shaken  than  in  the  country.  I  have  been 
in  a  great  church  in  one  of  the  chief  cities  during  the  festival 
of  the  patron  saint,  and  despite  fine  music  and  decorations  found 
only  five  worshippers,  where  five  thousand  would  have  foimd 
space.  Paganism  lingered  long  in  the  rural  districts,  dying  so 
imperceptibly  that  the  peasants  to  this  day  do  not  know  what 
true  Christianity  requires  of  them.  "  Pagus,^'  the  verbal  par- 
ent of  pagan  and  paganism,  meant  a  village,  which  was  their 
last  haunt.  Just  as  paganism  died  out,  longer  lived  in  the 
fields  than  the  streets,  so  will  the  papal  worship,  before  the 
newer  interpretations  of  Christianity,  initiated  by  Protestant- 
ism, and  more  practically  applied  to  human  welfare. 

A  sketch  of  a  nineteenth  century  pagus,  one  of  the 

pagus.  jjj^j^y  thousands  of  the  direct  descendants  of  those 
of  paganism,  which  are  to  be  seen  throughout  Italy  and  Sicily, 
will  show  how  the  bulk  of  their  peasantry  still  live.  Take,  for 
instance,  one  of  the  petty  hill-towns  in  the  old  province  of 
Lucca,  which  overhang  the  Baths.  Here  the  population  has 
ever  been  devoted  to  the  Church,  and  owing  to  the  numerous 
summer  visitors,  seen  somewhat  of  foreign  life,  had  a  ready 
market  for  their  labor  and  crops,  and  is  exceptionally  genial, 
simple,  and  industrious.  No  country  can  show  better  raw-stuff 
for  civilization.  The  Italian  peasant  often  possesses  a  fine 
mental  grain  and  rare  susceptibility  of  refinement.  How  far 
the  "healing  of  nations,"  as  administered  by  the  priesthood, 
has  elevated  their  material  and  intellectual  condition  above  that 
of  their  pagan  ancestry,  we  may  gain  some  idea  from  present 
facts,  which  do  not  vary  substantially  from  the  old,  while  one 
village  is  pretty  much  a  type  of  all,  though  the  poverty  and 
misery  of  many  have  reached  their  lowest  stage.  Guliana, 
called  after  Julius  Caesar,  is  a  better  specimen  than  common ; 
the  triple  Controni  one  of  the  worst. 

The  approach  is  by  steep  foot-paths,  winding  among  vine- 
yards, olive  groves,  chestnut  and  oak  forests,  over  hill-sides, 
broken  and  tossed  into  romantic  wildness,  every  step  offering  a 
fresh  view,  and  turning  fatigue  into  exhilaration  with  each 
breath  of  mountain  air.  Goats  beloved  of  Pan,  donkeys  of 
Bacchus,  grape-laden  peasants,  lithe  maidens  in  scant  drapery, 
with  antique  water-jars  poised  on  their  heads,  venting  their 
light-heartedness  in  wild  cries,  and  their  heavily  laden  mothers, 
sad  and  silent,  but  ever  prompt  with  a  courteous  greeting  for 
the  stranger,  make  a  novel  spectacle  for  an  American.  Near 


NATURE  OF  THE  PICTURESQUE.  151 


and  distant  bells  of  feudal  church-towers  call  to  each  other, 
now  in  exulting  cadence  from  high  crags,  sending  their  sil- 
very notes  through  the  sun-setting  air,  then  dying  softly 
away  in  shadowy  valleys  into  melodious  whispers,  as  if  guar- 
dian spirits  were  bidding  mortals  good-night,  before  mounting 
to  heaven.  Soon  we  reach  heights  overspread  with  an  atmos- 
phere of  dissolved  opal.  Thence  appear  ridge  behind  ridge  of 
mountains  in  softened  purple  outline  against  a  golden  horizon, 
retreating  into  the  mysterious  depths  of  the  Apennines,  as  waves 
after  a  storm  subside  into  long,  lazy  swells,  broken  at  intervals 
by  one  that  frets  its  indignant  foam  into  cataracts  of  color 
against  the  rebuking  sky. 

Before  this  spectacle,  the  visitor  who  comes  only  to  mature 
find  the  picturesque,  will  scarcely  turn  aside  to  look  of  the  pic- 
at  its  reverse.  My  theme  demands  both  views. 
Here  the  picturesque  being  twin  of  wretchedness,  the  aesthetic 
faculty  is  gratified  while  the  moral  sense  makes  its  practical 
investigations.  I  fear  that  ruin  or  decay  of  human  work  and 
life,  as  opposed  to  comfort  and  progress,  is  the  essential  element 
of  the  picturesque.  Nature  puts  on  this  aesthetic  disguise,  to 
reconcile  us  to  her  rudely  rapid  growth  or  quiescent,  long- 
breathed  revolutions.  Antique  and  mediaeval  art  had  no  ob- 
jective recognition  of  it,  for  their  idealisms  were  of  human  and 
superhuman  types.  By  no  elasticity  of  imagination  can  we 
make  man  himself,  apart  from  his  background  of  Nature,  into  a 
picturesque  object.  The  imperious  individuality  of  his  living 
presence  eliminates  its  spirit  from  art.  Picturesqueness  is  a 
modern  aesthetic  discovery,  that  comes  from  a  descent  of  the 
mind  in  its  standard  of  appreciation  rather  than  a  rise.  The 
antique  ideal  was  the  superhuman  beautiful.  The  mediaeval 
ideal  was  the  supernatural  human ;  in  one  case  man  was  made 
a  god,  in  the  other  God  was  made  man,  each  yielding  a  sublime 
creative  art.  Renaissance  transformed  the  sensuous  loveliness 
of  the  former  and  the  spiritual  beauty  of  the  latter  into  a 
bestial  ideal ;  or  a  direct  confession  of  sensualism  as  the  foot- 
hold of  man's  faith.  There  could  be  no  picturesqueness  in  this 
any  more,  indeed  even  less,  than  in  the  others,  for  wantonness 
is  a  lewd  ape,  and  detests  alike  the  spiritual  sublime  and  the 
natural  comely. 

Ancient  science  was  speculative,  just  as  antique  art  was  imag- 
inative. Modern  science  plants  itself  on  rationalism,  drawing 
art  after  it  into  the  simple  phase  of  observation.  Mark 


152 


ITALIAN  PEASANT  LIFE. 


how  distinct  their  life  essences  are !  Briefly,  modern  art  being 
more  versatile  and  diversified  in  its  taste,  fonder  of  what  is  am- 
biguously termed  nature,  adheres  to  a  lower  range  of  motives 
and  treats  them  either  in  a  picturesque  or  realistic  manner,  con- 
tented to  be  pretty  or  true.  Hence  its  tendency  is  to  lower 
man  as  an  art  motive,  just  as  antiquity  was  prone  to  the  oppo- 
site. What  man  for  the  moment  loses,  nature  gains.  The  new 
field  of  taste  is  both  attractive  and  wholesome,  but  it  should  not 
cause  indifference  to  the  real  welfare  of  our  species.  Pic- 
turesqueness  then  becomes  a  siren  beguiling  art  into  a  theory  of 
dilettante  excitements  and  technical  appreciations,  disennobling 
to  character  and  belittling  to  the  fancy.  For  this  reason  I  put 
the  love  of  the  picturesque  into  its  proper  secondary  position  as 
regards  art,  and  as  an  antidote  to  my  own  disposition  to  over- 
regard  it,  introduce  a  pagus  to  my  readers. 

Imagine  a  few  score  rude  stone  hovels  huddled  together,  after 
the  universal  air  and  light  excluding  patterns  of  the  old  cities, 
only  more  shrunken,  grimy,  and  weather-racked,  low-studded, 
heavy-roofed,  few  or  no  panes  of  glass,  the  stone  stairs  mostly 
on  the  outside  ;  rooms  small,  dark,  and  bat-like  ;  blackened  rafters 
and  tiles  overhead,  and  underneath  dilapidated  stone  floors  ;  pig- 
geries, henneries,  stables,  and  human  slum,  all  mixed  up  and  in 
common  use ;  put  rows  of  these  habitations  on  sharp  hill-sides, 
grown  like  lichens  to  the  rock,  and  forming  lanes  or  tiny 
squares  so  close  that  only  a  mid-day  sun  can  lighten  tlieir  re- 
cesses, each  a  den  of  dirt  and  penury,  or  if  there  be  any 
of  better  outside,  comfort  in  the  interior  does  not  match  it; 
add  the  reeking  filth  of  an  unwashed  population,  where  water  is 
often  far-fetched  and  hard  to  get ;  a  perennial  diet  of  sour  wine, 
black  bread,  green  oil,  coarse  beans  and  salads,  often  scanty  at 
that ;  find  as  the  centres  of  this  village  life,  a  cafe  which  is  an 
air-tight  chillsome  cell,  containing  a  few  bottles,  tumblers,  and 
the  omnipresent  tobacco,  pipes,  salt,  and  postage  stamjjs  of  gov- 
ernmental monopoly  ;  a  clean  patched  up  church  may  be  on  the 
site,  and  heir  to  the  remains  of  a  heatlien  temjDle,  or,  as  at  Asissi, 
the  old  temple  itself,  with  its  primitive  altar  of  sacrifice  still  to 
be  seen  by  descending  a  few  feet  beneath  the  level  of  the  pres- 
ent piazza,  showing  that  one  has  not  to  scratch  deep  anywhere 
in  papal  soil  to  disinter  paganism  ;  a  church  that  fits  restlietically 
well  into  the  material  degradation  around  it,  limiting  its  spiritual 
gifts  to  its  venerable  routine  of  festivals  and  masses,  but  keep- 
ing alive,  in  the  stunted  human  heart,  a  divine  spark  which  other- 


A  YANKEE  VILLAGE. 


153 


wise  might  entirely  go  out  in  the  intellectual  darkness  that 
comes  of  complete  isolation  from  the  world  at  large ;  a  literature 
limited  to  church-prayers,  marvels  of  saints,  an  almanac,  and 
sometimes  one  Lilliputian  newspaper  from  the  nearest  city;  a 
people  of  whom  the  old  are  prematurely  woe-begone  and  de- 
crepit, body  and  mind  worked  and  starved  to  the  verge  of  ex- 
tinction ;  the  young  with  their  parents'  hardships  for  their  sole 
inheritance  ;  liife  for  all  a  horrid  enchantment  of  profitless,  ill  fed, 
badly  sheltered  toil;  death  only  presenting  a  ghastly  hope  of 
betterment,  provided  the  ecclesiastical  power  that  broods  with 
raven-wings  over  this  desolation  be  propitiated  to  say  God  speed  : 
combine  all  this  into  one  picture  and  it  will  be  an  average  sample 
of  the  last  strongholds  of  the  papacy  in  Italy,  made  the  more  piti- 
able by  its  exquisite  setting  of  the  handiwork  of  God.  Pan  is 
verily  dead,  and  Christ  has  not  risen  here. 

May  not  the  picturesque  cost  humanity  too  much  ?  There  is 
none  in  a  Yankee  or  his  home.  Instead,  angularity  and  thrift 
abound.  He  and  his  comfort  are  as  much  the  fruit  of  two  cen- 
turies of  Puritan  culture  as  the  Italian  peasant  and  his  destitu- 
tion are  the  sum  total  of  papal  gestation  after  fifteen.  The 
Yankee  is  not  yet  the  ideal  man  of  humanity ;  far  from  it.  He 
lacks  aesthetic  roundness  and  juiciness.  Breadth,  expansion,  the 
gracious  refinement  of  true  taste,  amenity  of  manners,  and  com- 
prehension of  the  right  place  and  object  of  the  beautiful  in  civ- 
ilization, come  slow  and  hard  to  him  ;  for  his  ancestors  were  too 
recently  Teutonic  or  Saxon  barbarians,  while  his  own  exigencies 
of  existence  have  been  of  necessity  desperately  utilitarian  and 
homely.  Besides,  his  actual  civilization  only  began  after  the 
Reformation  had  put  art  under  a  dogmatic  ban,  and  made  him 
suspicious  of  it  altogether.  Wisely,  it  has  happened  to  him  that 
first  he  was  led  to  improve  himself  morally  and  materially. 
Having  secured  his  political  and  personal  independence,  made 
an  orderly  and  comfortable  home,  built  his  school  and  meeting- 
houses, lecture  rooms,  music-halls,  and  libraries,  connected  his 
village  by  railway  and  telegraph  with  the  whole  world,  sub- 
scribed for  his  literary  magazine  and  news  journal,  abolished 
slavery  in  man  and  put  steam  to  do  his  hardest  labor,  provided 
for  his  general  well-being  and  secured  his  income,  let  us  hope  he 
will  now  begin  to  give  over  his  one-sided  intensity  of  intellec- 
tual training  and  look  about  for  means  to  make  his  life  more 
spiritually  productive  and  aesthetically  happy.  His  two  centu- 
ries of  axe  and  school  work  are  a  sound  investment.  Fifteen 


164  WHAT  CHRISTIANITY  HAS  DONE. 


centuries'  misrule  have  left  his  Italian  brother  a  beggar  as  to  the 
first  necessaries  of  civilization,  incapacitated  him  from  rightly 
enjoying  what  Nature  has  so  generously  given  him  gratis,  and 
of  comprehending  and  rightly  directing  the  fine  gesthetic  tem- 
perament native  to  his  race.  Such  has  been  the  delinquency 
of  his  church  as  regards  his  education,  that  at  last  the  civil 
power  has  been  compelled  both  to  undo  what  it  has  done,  and 
to  do  what  it  has  left  undone,  so  that  his  welfare  now  rests 
more  upon  the  action  of  the  state  than  his  religious  instructors. 
It  has  turned  convents  into  barracks,  schools,  asylums,  hospitals, 
and  museums  ;  compelled  idle  and  vagrant  nuns  and  monks  to  be- 
come normal  men  and  women  ;  broken  up  many  sources  of  beg- 
gary and  superstition,  and  finally  by  the  intervention  of  the  drill- 
sergeant  given  to  the  village  clowns  their  first  lessons  in  manliness, 
neatness,  sanitary  discipline,  general  intelligence.  As  the  soldier 
proves  to  be  a  better  schoolmaster  than  the  priest,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  Church  is  losing  its  influence  even  over  the 
masses,  while  intelligent  men  are  hopeless  of  any  reform  within 
itself.  Nbnpossumus  cuts  two  ways  at  once. 
What  the  Although  the  priests  have  left  so  much  undone, 

SlaftTac-  Christianity  itself  has  not  been  quite  inert.  A  moral 
compiished.  upheaval  has  been  going  on  since  the  Crucifixion. 
The  outlook  of  humanity  is  different.  Certain  old  rites  and  vir- 
tues are  now  called  vices  and  indecencies.  It  is  not  considered 
right  to  plunder  or  enslave  a  man  because  he  speaks  another 
language,  or  lives  on  the  further  side  of  a  river  or  mountain  ; 
although  the  custom  is  still  rife  among  Tuscan  bumpkins  of  dif- 
ferent villages  of  waylaying  one  another  when  they  go  a-wooing, 
and  either  savagely  beating  or  bedaubing  with  human  ordure 
from  head  to  foot  the  unfortunate  swain  whose  amorous  courage 
has  prompted  him  to  risk  the  penalty  of  courting  a  lass  of  a 
rival  hamlet.  As  this  filthy  persecution  ends  at  marriage,  the 
lover  makes  haste  to  transform  the  sweetheart  into  his  wife. 
Roman  priests  may  do  silly  and  imbecile  things,  but  they  would 
not  now  be  upheld  by  public  sentiment,  as  in  the  antique  Luper- 
cals,  in  running  races  naked  through  the  streets,  and  striking  those 
they  met  with  whips  of  goatskin,  the  blows  of  which  were  received 
with  great  unction  by  married  women  because  supposed  to  pro- 
mote fertility.  Even  in  the  third  century  a.  c,  human  sacri- 
fices were  continued  on  the  Albine  Mount  to  the  Latian  Jupiter. 
In  modern  times  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  felt  obligated 
to  veil  its  blood-offerings  by  dogmatic  chicanery  and  inquis- 


THE  COUNTRY  PRIEST. 


155 


itorial  offices.  The  riotous  rites  of  Cybele,  "  Virgin  Mother  of 
the  God,"  with  their  processions  of  "  miserable  buffoons,"  as  St. 
Augustine  calls  them,  chanting  indecent  verses  before  her  image, 
are  now  succeeded  by  the  chaster  though  not  less  idolatrous 
worship  of  the  Madonna.  In  fine  there  has  been  some  moral 
progress,  but  not  enough  to  save  Romanism  from  the  fate  of  the 
unfaithful  steward. 

I  have  personal  cause  of  sympathy  in  its  approach-  The  de- 

,    ,      ^  •         P  thronement 

mg  dethronement,  as  will  be  seen  m  the  narration  ot  of  papacy. 
sundry  experiences,  and  reasons  for  deprecating  any  sudden 
violence  to  the  feelings  of  the  rural  population.  If  the  papal, 
like  the  pagan  worship,  is  abruptly  destroyed,  before  a  superior 
system  of  religious  instruction  is  rooted  in  the  convictions  of  the 
people,  they  will  be  left  in  utter  aesthetic  and  mental  destitu- 
tion. The  peasant  would  lose  the  slight  hold  that  he  has  on 
civilization,  and  be  reduced  in  his  hopes  and  pleasures  to  the 
level  of  his  cattle.  His  theatre,  music-hall,  and  school-room  are 
still  centred  in  the  Church,  which  provides  his  only  entertain- 
ments while  living  and  consolation  in  dying.  Defective  as  is 
its  practical  training,  it  preserves  precious  germs  of  religion  and 
morality.  But  there  can  be  no  enlightened,  patriotic  clergymen 
where  the  public  opinion  is  not  sufficiently  instructed  to  be  a 
judge  of  their  qualifications  and  a  stimulus  to  their  intellectual 
progress.  A  country  priest  in  Italy  may  be  well-intentioned 
and  of  average  culture,  but  he  must  be  more  than  human,  if  his 
isolation,  deprivation  of  family  ties,  dull  routine  of  rites  and 
neglect  of  preaching,  do  not  in  time  cause  a  decline  of  his  moral 
and  intellectual  state  almost  to  the  surrounding  level. 

In  America  a  clergyman  is  exercised  to  keep  up  with  the 
mental  requirements  of  his  congregation.  If  he  fall  behind, 
sometimes  if  he  get  too  far  ahead,  he  is  exchanged  for  another. 
Our  competitive  brain  attrition  compels  the  clergy  either  to  face 
the  living  age  about  them,  or  to  drop  behind  into  the  oblivion  of 
effete  ideas.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  their  discipline  and  training 
force  the  priests  to  turn  their  backs  on  the  present.  They  live 
in  perpetual  contradiction  to  its  spirit  and  needs,  as  a  distinct 
class,  owing  allegiance  to  a  hostile  court,  disclaiming  responsi- 
bility to  their  own  feeders,  and  inclined  by  unwise  vows  to  sex- 
ual relations  that  have  given  rise  to  the  common  saying,  "  as  bad 
as  a  priest."  The  falsities  they  are  required  to  invent  and  pro- 
claim, are  enough  in  themselves  to  stultify  the  mind.  A  health- 
ful action  of  brain  and  body  becomes  equally  as  impossible  as 


156 


A  CHURCH  PAGEANT. 


a  congenial  association  of  ideas  and  interests  with  modern  pro- 
gress. 

The  original  sin  of  this  wrong  practice  and  position  is  not  to 
be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  inferior  clergy.    They  are  con- 
scripted to  do  the  work  of  their  ecclesiastical  lords.    The  evil 
has  passed  so  thoroughly  into  all  phases  of  society  that  improve- 
ment has  become  hopeless  except  by  radical  changes  of  religious 
and  aesthetic  instruction.    What  the  present  system  is  I  will 
show  by  citing  one  of  those  periodical  pageants,  to  be  seen  in 
their  primitive  idolatry  only  among  the  peasantry.    The  scene 
occurred  in  a  hill-town  on  the  outskirts  of  the  Tuscan  Ma- 
remma.    Its  motive  was  a  miraculous  crucifix  of  hideous  aspect 
which  was  believed  to  heal  diseases,  and  perform  other  acts 
much  to  the  credit  of  the  priests  who  owned  it.    But  so  sacred 
was  it  considered  that  it  was  exposed  in  public  procession  only 
once  in  seventeen  years,  or  on  occasions  of  calamity,  when  its 
supernatural  power  was  a  last  resource  of  superstition.    Its  fete 
was  the  most  important  event  that  could  happen  to  the  neigh- 
borhood.   Bands  of  music  were  sent  for,  fireworks  provided, 
booths  erected,  and  a  regular  trading,  feasting,  and  religious  ju- 
bilee prepared.    Men,  women,  and  children  in  their  gala  attire 
came  from  all  the  country  round,  beggars  to  forego  for  a  brief  holi- 
day their  monotonous  whine,  cripples  to  be  healed,  and  all  to 
accept   the  proffered  "  indulgences."    The  crowd  followed  in 
procession,  or  kneeled  in  the  hot,  dusty  road,  strewn  with  green 
leaves  and  flowers,  along  which  the  image  was  borne  under  a 
gaudy  canopy  surrounded   by  lighted  candles,  held  by  richly 
robed  priests  chanting  and  swinging  censers,  and  the  usual  mob 
of  laymen  and  dirty  boys  greedy  after  the  wax-drippings,  all 
tumultuous  with  anticipated  enjoyment.    In  Rome  and  cities  in 
general,  spectacles  of  this  sort  are  mainly  shows  to  attract  stran- 
gers and  amuse  the  populace.    Here  however  there  was  a  deep 
undercurrent  of  fanatical  enthusiasm.    Although  standing  re- 
spectfully apart  from  the  crowd,  a  stranger  was  savagely  re- 
proved for  not  joining  in  the  homage  to  their  idol.    In  the  lively 
pleasuring  that  ensued  after  the  religious  functions  were  finished, 
there  were  no  drunken  excesses  or  disturbances.    The  entire 
population  had  given  itself  over  to  the  Church  to  be  amused 
and  edified  as  it  thought  expedient  for  them.    Their  plan  was 
not  calculated  to  enlighten  their  understanding,  or  to  make  the 
people  more  self-reliant.    But  it  marked  a  bright  spot  in  their 
impoverished  lives,  and  stirred  anew  their  sluggish  emotions. 


DUOMO  OF  CORTONA. 


157 


Would  it  be  wise  to  forcibly  deprive  them  even  of  such  enter- 
tainment before  they  had  acquired  an  insight  into  something  of 
a  more  salutary  character  ?  ^ 

Is  it  simply  a  desire  to  oblige,  or  a  growing  indif-  jy^oyno  of 
ference  to  their  own  rites,  that  makes  the  subordinates  Cortona. 
in  many  Italian  churches  so  amiable  to  visitors  ? 

Going  into  the  Duomo  of  Cortona,  one  Sunday  morning,  to 
keep  an  appointment  with  the  sacristan  to  see  the  Signorellis,  I 
found  high  mass  going  on  in  presence  of  a  numerous  auditory. 
As  I  was  turning  back,  the  sacristan  perceived  me,  and  insisted 
on  my  seeing  the  paintings.  It  was  necessary  to  pass  through 
the  entire  congregation  an^  by  the  priests  at  the  altar,  which  I 
was  reluctant  to  do,  especially  with  a  party.  But  wishing  to  test 
to  what  extent  sight-seeing  under  such  circumstances  would  be 
not  seen  by  the  clergy  and  their  flock,  we  followed  our  guide 
and  were  unnoticed  except  by  an  occasional  furtive  glance. 
Strangers  are  rare  in  Cortona ;  but  the  magnetism  of  politeness 
and  devotion  combined,  caused  a  sobriety  of  deportment  which 
would  not  be  looked  for  in  any  Protestant  meeting-house  if 
anything  equally  novel  should  occur  to  excite  the  attention  of  its 
pew-pent  members.  We  were  speedily  made  to  feel  that  we 
could  go  on  with  our  business  as  freely  as  the  priests  with 
theirs.  To  better  inspect  the  principal  picture,  the  sacristan 
told  us  to  climb  the  rear  of  the  high  altar,  amid  the  candlesticks 
and  sacred  ornaments,  mass  going  on  meanwhile  in  front.  This 
looked  so  much  like  abusing  our  privileges  that  we  declined  ; 
but  he  set  the  example,  and  made  a  path  for  us.  We  enjoyed 
our  position  without  receiving  one  reproving  glance  or  being 
noticed  in  any  way. 

On  another  occasion,  to  avoid  intrusion,  I  went  early  to  the 
Church  of  St.  Francis  at  Arezzo,  to  study  the  frescoes  of  Piero 

1  Notwithstanding  his  firm  habits  of  devotion,  the  common  Italian  at  times 
will  play  pranks  with  church-rites  such  as  Protestant  levity  would  never  devise 
against  anything  held  sacred.  Not  long  since  there  was  to  be  a  grand  festival 
in  one  of  the  minor  seaports,  ending  in  a  procession  of  chanting  monks,  music, 
candles,  and  images,  got  up  with  all  possible  splendor  and  solemnity,  but  pre- 
ceded by  a  feast  which  the  populace  were  admitted  to  view  as  the  dishes  were 
placed  on  the  tables.  A  wag  among  them  slyly  dropped  a  large  dose  of  jalap 
into  the  soup,  which  was  consumed  in  due  time.  As  the  reader  may  surmise, 
after  the  procession  had  started  on  its  long  round,  there  were  exhibited  by  its 
tonsured  and  robed  members  a  series  of  impromptu  and  involuntary  spectacles 
wholly  uncanonical,  to  the  astonishment  and  diversion  of  the  crowd.  The 
sufferers  charitably  attributed  their  abdominal  distress  to  the  use  of  copper 
vessels  not  properlv  tinned. 


158 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 


della  Francesca  in  the  choir.  But  the  friars  soon  began  to 
enter,  and  pray  close  to  me.  As  I  started  to  go,  they  begged  me 
not  to  mind  them,  but  to  consult  my  own  convenience,  offering 
sundry  explanations  of  the  subjects,  of  which,  however,  they 
knew  but  little,  and  could  appreciate  artistically  still  less.  The 
invitation  was  so  sincerely  given  that  I  stayed  in  their  midst 
while  they  went  on  wdth  the  regular  services  for  which  they  had 
collected.  I  must  not  forget  to  add  that  they  also  adjusted  the 
light  to  the  best  advantage  for  me  ;  and  the  next  moment,  ab- 
sorbed in  their  devotions,  no  more  heeded  my  presence  than  if 
I  had  been  one  of  the  painted  figures  on  the  wall.  In  the 
main  nave  I  had  met  the  day  before  a  young  priest  as  handsome 
as  an  angel,  sweeping  the  pavement.  Attracted  by  his  intelli- 
gent expression,  I  entered  into  conversation  with  him  on  matters 
of  art.  Leaning  on  his  broom-handle  with  unconscious  grace 
and  dignity,  his  remarks  caused  me  to  respect  his  taste  as  much 
as  the  high-toned  humility,  which  made  his  lowly  task  seem 
spiritually  great. 

Here  there  is  an  odious  contrast  to  draw  to  the  disadvantage 
of  our  English  relations.  Once,  being  near  Westminster  as  a 
storm  was  bursting  over  London,  I  sought  refuge  in  the  Abbey. 
The  sudden  transition  from  the  tempest  without  to  the  peace 
within  made  it  seem  like  the  holy  rest  saints  pray  for.  Morn- 
ing service  was  dying  out  in  solemn  tones  of  organ.  The  angry 
thunder,  pacified  by  its  passage  through  the  fretted  stone  roof, 
fell  on  the  ear  with  harmonious  cadence,  and  spent  itself  in  low 
whispers  amid  the  silent  monuments,  while  the  sharp  lightning, 
as  it  leaped  from  out  the  cloud-glooms,  pierced  the  stained  win- 
dows with  intensified  glory.  Never  had  I  so  completely  realized 
the  worth  of  the  true  Gothic  as  a  shelter  from  the  world,  and  a 
balm  for  the  troubled  soul.  My  gratitude  went  then  and  there 
freely  up  to  those  who  had  bestowed  on  man  so  precious  a  gift ; 
their  souls,  I  trusted,  were  realizing  in  the  perfect  mansions  of 
our  common  Father  the  fulness  of  that  spiritual  gladness  of 
which  their  labors  below  are  a  faint  type. 

Seeking  to  enter  the  Edward  Vllth  Chapel,  as  usual  I  was 
confronted  by  an  iron  gate  and  a  stout  verger,  who,  like  a  jailer 
speaking  to  a  convict,  told  me  to  wait  while  a  crowd  collected 
and  paid  their  fees  in  advance,  and  then  he  would  show  us 
through.  Former  experiences  of  the  boors  of  his  class  scamper- 
ing their  sixpenny  victims  through  a  spectacle  which  can  only 
be  enjoyed  by  contemplation  at  leisure,  had  so  disgusted  me 


WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 


159 


that  I  had  invariably  left,  cursing  the  British  supineness  which 
permitted  their  finest  ecclesiastical  edifice  to  be  a  mockery  in- 
stead of  an  edification  to  the  public,  as  its  rare  monuments  are 
called  off"  in  rapid  cockney  speech,  like  the  names  and  habits 
of  caged  beasts  by  a  vulgar  showman.  Indeed,  I  had  had  hasty 
words  with  my  wife  for  suggesting  to  me  again  to  undergo  this 
aesthetic  outrage.  I  remember  indignantly  saying  that  it  was 
countenancing  a  direct  robbery  of  the  American  and  English 
public,  whose  ancestors  had  bequeathed  this  monument  for  our 
free  edification,  and  that  it  effectually  barred  our  seeing  and  un- 
derstanding what  we  paid  to  see  and  understand.  However,  we 
tried  it  once  more,  in  a  crowd  of  pushing  children  and  women 
struggling  to  be  foremost,  and  get  out  soonest,  for  which  I  did 
not  blame  them.  After  our  keeper  had  counted  us  and  then 
his  sixpences  to  see  that  they  agreed,  he  began  in  the  most 
offensive  manner  to  race  us  through  in  the  "  going,  going,  gone  " 
habit  of  speech  of  an  auctioneer,  sharply  rebuking  any  who  lin- 
gered to  see  what  he  was  talking  about,  scolding  the  childi'en, 
apparently  terribly  agitated  lest  some  one  should  read  an  in- 
scription or  look  at  anything  but  his  swelling  person,  as  in  a 
pomjDous  madhouse  style  he  murdered  the  Queen's  English, 
history,  and  art  all  at  once.  So  rapid  was  he  that  he  overtook 
the  party  that  had  preceded  ours,  and  we  had  the  benefit  of  his 
brother  verger's  jargon  mingled  with  his.  One  blunt  English- 
man showed  fight,  and  told  him,  as  he  was  paid  for  it,  he  must 
behave  with  more  decency.  As  for  ourselves,  we  got  out  as 
soon  as  we  could,  vowing  more  indignantly  than  ever  not  again 
to  enter  the  chapel  unless  the  verger  nuisance  was  abated. 
Guides  elsewhere  may  be  as  greedy,  but  never  as  brutal  as  him 
of  the  Abbey.  Why  cannot  the  Chapter  charge  a  shilling  en- 
trance, and  permit  the  visitors  to  examine  their  museum  without 
being  badgered  by  their  fiunkeys  into  an  unchristian  state  of 
mind.  Is  it  that  their  system  is  so  uniquely  bad  that  they  take 
pride  in  making  it  a  "  vested  right  ?  " 

How  different  are  the  rencounters  in  Italy !  Discovering 
genuine  men  concealed  in  cowls  begets  a  romantic  sympathy 
for  their  orders.  Exploring  lately  the  suppressed  Convent  of 
Monte  Uliveto,  near  Florence,  I  chanced  upon  its  last  Bene- 
dictine occupant,  left  as  the  temporary  guardian  of  its  forlorn - 
ness.  He  was  a  cultivated,  comely,  clean  monk  of  aristocratic 
bearing  and  sensuous  temperament.  As  he  talked  about  his 
speedy  return  to  family  life,  art,  and  politics,  I  detected  in  the 


160 


CHURCH  LAZZARONL 


lurking  satire  of  a  bright,  sagacious  eye  that  which  would  soon 
reconcile  him  to  worldly  cares  and  ambition.  Taking  me  out 
of  the  mysterious  darkness  of  the  convent  into  the  declining 
sunlight,  which  revealed  the  city  as  in  a  golden  flame  shooting 
skyward  against  a  background  of  purple  hills,  he  seemed  like 
the  genius  of  fresh,  young  Italy,  casting  behind  him  the  dead 
past  to  rejoice  in  the  vital  present.  Guides  like  the  courteous 
Benedictine  and  the  more  spiritual  monk  of  St.  Francesco  are 
not  to  be  bought  with  dirty  sixpences.  Indeed,  to  hint  at  a 
recompense  for  their  politeness  is  only  to  invite  mortification  for 
want  of  perception. 

There  is,  however,  a  class  of  church  lazzaroni  who  do  try  the 
temper  and  purse  of  the  visitor.  I  confess  to  pitying  them 
after  coming  to  know  something  of  their  abject  lot.  Cease, 
friends,  to  grudge  their  importunity  the  small  j^ittance  that 
makes  them  happier  for  meeting  you.  They  clean  the  rich 
pavements  you  walk  over,  and  dust  your  favorite  pictures.  Two 
types  I  have  in  mind,  one  of  Arezzo,  the  other  of  Siena,  no 
matter  what  church,  for  the  poor  are  ever  about  us.  Both  were 
absolute  hags  in  outward  appearance.  The  former  installed 
herself  as  my  body-guard  against  the  rest  of  beggardom,  and 
facilitated  inspection  of  the  monuments,  besides  letting  me  behind 
the  scenes  of  her  life.  Her  golden  days  had  been  spent  in  the 
service  of  Perugino  in  his  native  Citta  della  Pieve,  when  it  was 
the  fashion  to  admire  him.  Visitors  and  coppers  were  plentiful. 
But  the  taste  of  tourists  finally  got  surfeited  on  that  form  of 
preraphaelite  diet,  and  she  was  obliged  to  change  her  quarters 
for  those  of  some  other  artist  more  in  request.  For  her  sins 
she  had  hit  on  Arezzo,  where  she  was  now  worse  off'  than  ever. 
But  her  patience  and  hope  were  inexhaustible,  while  her  content- 
ment was  a  lesson  to  me. 

A  stranger  in  Italy  must  submit  to  beggary  of  all  degrees  of 
genuineness  and  imposition,  as  an  unavoidable  element  of  the 
picturesque.  It  is  best  to  turn  it  to  advantage,  since  it  cannot 
be  repressed.  The  mendicants  that  herd  in  the  Piazza  of  the 
Duomo  at  Pisa  are  perversely  obtrusive,  but  not  without  a 
sense  of  honor.  Before  entering  the  cathedral,  I  assembled 
them,  and  asked  how  much  they  would  demand  not  to  speak  to 
me  again  that  day.  After  some  consultation,  they  named  a  sum 
which  gave  each  less  than  one  cent.  I  paid  it  and  they  held 
scrupulously  to  their  bargain,  much  to  my  comfort  as  I  saw 
their  importunate  exhibition  of  rags  and  sores  to  others. 


RAZZrS  EPIPHANY. 


161 


My  Siena  friend  let  me  into  a  secret  as  regards  church-pay 
worth  all  the  sympathy  she  extracted.  She  had  attached  her- 
self to  Razzi's  picturesque  Epiphany,  with  its  Joseph  jealously 
scowling  at  the  youngest  of  the  kings,  who  is  more  ardently  ad- 
miring the  mother  than  the  infant,  a  magnificent  painting,  the 
drawing  of  whose  curtain  ought  to  relieve  any  one  in  pitiable 
circumstances.  But,  alas,  it  does  not !  As  she  phrased  it,  for 
breaking  her  back  and  scrubbing  her  scant  flesh  down  to  the 
bones  in  keeping  the  church  clean,  and  moving  about  the  heavy 
"  roba  "  for  the  frequent  festivals,  she  received  an  annual  salary 
of  exactly  three  dollars  and  sixty  cents,  four  dinners  of  meat 
and  wine,  and  a  bread-and-water  diet  the  remainder  of  the  time. 
On  this  and  Razzi  she  lived,  but  her  receipts  from  him  had  to  be 
divided  with  a  superior  custode,  who  watched  her  so  closely  that 
she  dared  not  except  a  single  centime  for  herself  exclusively. 
Her  patched  garments,  coeval  with  her  first  womanhood,  would 
have  made  excellent  relics  of  the  holiest  of  the  female  anchor- 
ites. All  the  men  that  she  knew,  she  detested ;  the  priests  be- 
cause of  her  salary,  the  custode  for  filching  her  gains,  and  her 
husband  for  threatening  to  kill  her  if  she  left  her  present  posi- 
tion in  uncertain  quest  of  a  better.  Her  sole  love  was  a  cat 
who  shared  her  bread  and  water,  watched  the  picture  and  her 
visitors,  and  was  rewarded  by  torrents  of  kisses  from  a  withered 
mouth,  which  it  bore  with  resignation,  as  philosophers  submit  to 
fate.  She  reckoned  it  a  happy  event  that  after  waiting  months 
in  vain  for  sti-angers  to  call  upon  her  "  old  master,"  on  that  day 
and  the  one  before  several  had  come.  There  was  an  excusable 
bitterness  in  her  estimate  of  life,  as  she  eat  her  meagre  dinner 
sitting  on  the  chilling  marble  floor,  embracing  her  cat  in  the  in- 
tervals of  her  conversation. 

If  my  reader  wishes  an  agreeable  flavor  of  mediae-  Hermitage  of 
val  monasticism  to  abide  permanently  in  his  mind,  like  Gaincano. 
that  of  a  rich  old  wine  on  his  palate,  let  him  go  to  the  Hermitage 
of  Gallicano,  twelve  carriage  and  three  pedestrian  miles  from  the 
Baths  of  Lucca,  following  the  valley  of  the  Serchio.  The  walk- 
ing part  of  the  trip  is  *up  a  picturesque  valley.  We  enter  it 
where  the  romantic  old  town  of  Gallicano  rises  abruptly  on  either 
side  of  the  narrow  gorge  through  which  flows  the  stream  that 
comes  down  the  hills,  divided  into  fertilizing  rills,  and  giving  to 
the  vegetation  an  almost  tropical  luxuriance  of  green.  About 
half-way  up  the  Apennines,  whose  backbone  here  crests  the 
Mediterranean,  and  grows  into  one  with  the  white  Carrara 
11 


162 


HERMITAGE  OF  GALLIC ANO. 


mountains,  we  come  suddenly  upon  the  Hermitage,  clinging 
to  the  hollow  of  an  overhanging  precipice,  fringed  with  forest 
trees,  and  ferns  that  droop  over  its  extreme  verge.  So  slight 
is  the  apparent  foothold,  we  marvel  how  it  hangs  there,  and  by 
what  way  to  approach  it.  But  in  advancing,  the  path  discloses 
itself  until  the  outer  gate  is  reached,  where  streams  of  crystal 
water,  too  cold  to  drink  suddenly,  g-ush  from  the  rock  out  of 
which  the  Hermitage  for  the  most  part  is  excavated.  The  nar- 
row, sloping  ledge  on  which  it  stands,  formed  by  fallen  debris, 
seems  scarcely  sufficient  to  sustain  the  antique  Romanesque  fa- 
cade, forming  a  two-storied  corridor  and  bell-tower,  which  lean 
or  brace  themselves  against  the  precipice,  to  prevent  sliding 
bodily  down  the  hill.  Solid  structures,  however,  make  the  archi- 
tecture secure,  though  so  steep  and  sudden  is  the  descent,  broken 
at  first  by  a  series  of  stone  terraces,  upholding  patches  of  culti- 
vated soil,  that  a  visitor,  seated  in  the  upper  corridor,  seems 
like  a  bird  in  a  cage  hung  against  a  high  wall  midway  between 
ground  and  sky ;  projecting  eaves  keeping  it  in  dark  shadow, 
while  far  beneath  lie  the  sunlight,  waters,  flowers,  and  fruits  it 
pines  to  reach.  The  sensation  is  peculiarly  novel,  for  the  view 
commands  a  variety  of  the  grand  and  beautiful,  under  local 
conditions  so  startling  as  all  but  to  mingle  fear  with  pleasure. 
At  first  sight  of  the  immense  mass  of  rock,  split  and  fractured 
.by  former  catastrophes  of  nature,  rising  concavely  hundreds 
of  feet  above,  and  projecting  over  the  building,  and  the  steep 
gulf  that  descends  for  fifteen  hundred  feet  directly  beneath,  so 
that  a  mere  foot  wall  alone  prevents  the  visitor  from  seeing  the 
first  descent  of  the  ground,  one  may  plead  guilty  to  nervous  ap- 
prehension. Soon,  however,  the  strangeness  of  the  spectacle, 
coupled  with  the  thought  that  for  more  than  eight  centuries  her- 
mits have  lived  here  in  friendship  with  the  formidable  mountain 
—  indeed  protected,  warmed,  fed,  and  sheltered  by  it  —  tranquil- 
lizes the  mind  to  a  degree  that  makes  it  begin  to  envy  them  their 
lot.  No  repulsive  asceticism  is  seen  hereabouts.  Theirs  was 
the  sylvan  picturesqueness  of  anchoret  life.  They  were  placid 
Christian  satyrs,  vegetarians,  praying  as  their  antique  prototype 
piped,  working  as  he  danced,  but,  like  him,  appreciative  amateurs 
of  an  equable  climate,  delicious  groves,  fountains,  and  whatever 
makes  the  landscape  agreeable.  There  were  no  noxious  animals 
or  reptiles  to  molest  them.  A  more  agreeable  outlook  on  the 
external  world,  none  might  pine  for.  On  the  farther  side  of  the 
Serchio  rose  the  Lucca  Apennines,  crowned  with  forests,  villas, 


HERMITAGE  OF  GALLIC ANO. 


163 


and  feudal  towns,  the  most  prominent  of  which,  Bari,  was  dis- 
tinctly in  sight  on  its  verdant  mountain  site,  with  its  white  walls 
and  grand  old  Lombard  Duomo  glistening  in  the  sun  like  a  dia- 
mond set  in  emeralds.  In  front  were  high  peaks  and  ravines 
of  a  semi-alpine  character.  By  ascending  their  own  mountain 
to  the  pass  that  led  westward,  these  hermits  could  see  much  of 
the  glory  of  the  earth  and  the  kingdoms  thereof.  A  semicircle 
of  snow-tipped  mountains  spreads  itself  right  and  left,  until 
lost  in  the  distant  horizon,  or  sunk  in  the  sea  which  washes 
the  sands  from  the  Gulf  of  Spezzia  to  the  towers  of  Livorno. 
Between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  spectator  lie  the  scattered 
fragments  of  once  hostile  duchies,  fertile  in  olives,  vines,  and 
grain,  still  bristling  with  the  grim  defences  of  more  barbarous 
days.  All  this  and  more  glory  the  shabby  hermits  were  heir 
to,  but  I  doubt  if  they  ever  gave  it  a  moment's  consideration  ; 
for  to  recognize  nature  understandingly,  requires  an  aesthetic 
sense  and  spiritual  discernment  that  anchorites,  pedants,  or 
mere  worldlings  are  not  apt  to  possess.  Doubtless,  our  shorn 
and  girdled  ascetic  found  an  infinite  satisfaction  in  his  labori- 
ously built  terraces,  with  their  few  inches  of  uncertain  soil 
which  bore  him  the  fruit  and  vegetables  he  liked.  They  were 
now  bright  with  flowers  and  oranges,  arranged  in  a  tiny  parterre, 
after  the  formal  Italian  manner,  but  very  welcome  in  color  for 
the  brilliant  contrast  they  offered  to  the  gray  sternness  of  the 
precipice.  A  lank  fig-tree,  bearing  a  solitary  fruit,  had  forced 
its  way  into  the  air  out  of  the  smutty  crevice  which  served  as 
the  chimney  to  the  kitchen.  Its  shrivelled,  soot-covered  trunk 
was  pointed  out  as  a  sort  of  vegetable  miracle  protected  from 
the  fire,  and  nourished  by  the  odor  of  sanctity  that  clove  to  the 
spot,  despite  its  secularization.  The  edifice  itself  grew  sympa- 
thetically out  of  the  rock.  Its  chapels  and  dormitories  were 
light  and  clean,  if  not  cheerful.  The  young  canon  who  hospi- 
tably entertained  us,  said  that  one  aged  hermit  was  left ;  but  as 
he  was  then  in  the  forest  gathering  fuel,  we  did  not  see  him. 
Our  canon's  rock-cell  had  a  piano,  plenty  of  orthodox  books,  and 
sundry  mild  works  of  art,  all  quite  unanchorite  in  aspect.  There 
were  plainer  chambers  for  visitors,  beside  an  unalluring  woman 
to  wait  on  them.  We  ate  our  picnic  dinner  in  the  upper  cor- 
ridor, in  the  open  air,  cordially  approving  of  this  hermitage  if  no 
other. 

But  the  ascetic  fruit  of  mediaeval  mysticism,  and  religious 
feeling,  both  good  and  bad,  is  fast  being  swept  aside  by  nine- 


164       TRANSFORMATION,  NOT  OBLITERATION. 


teenth  century  utilitarianism.  Such  objects  of  art  as  can  be 
removed,  are  being  gathered  into  local  museums,  or  pass  into  the 
hands  of  amateurs  and  dealers.  What  was  once  holy  is  now 
simply  beautiful  or  curious.  In  brief,  Roman  Catholic  religious 
art  is  rapidly  finding  itself  on  the  same  intellectual  level  as  the 
antique,  and  as  irrevocably  passing  away.  Soon  there  will  be 
very  little  of  it  to  be  seen  in  its  original  condition  and  localities. 
I  do  not  regret  this  any  more  than  I  do  the  dying  out  of  clas- 
sical art,  for  while  it  held  the  minds  of  men  in  the  thraldom  of 
fear,  there  was  no  opening  for  better  influences.  It  should  be 
scrupulously  preserved,  when  possible,  intact,  for  its  historical  and 
assthetic  worth.  As  the  world  now  stands  —  thanks  to  the  ser- 
vice Christian  art  has  done  —  on  a  higher  basis  of  humanity 
than  it  did  when  it  superseded  the  art  of  antiquity,  we  will  not 
have  to  regret  its  ruthless  devastation  and  destruction,  as  was 
the  case  with  its  pagan  ancestor.  Besides,  the  religious  dis- 
quiet which  has  come  over  the  w^orld  at  this  juncture  is  more  a 
regular  development  of  mind  than  the  fruit  of  revolutionary  de- 
sires. Ideas  and  acts  having  a  certain  freedom  of  expansion 
are  less  inclined  to  be  convulsively  destructive.  Attilas,  Gen- 
serics.  Iconoclasts,  Anabaptists,  Robespierres,  and  St.  Justs,  are 
less  and  less  likely  to  be  repeated.  The  old  is  better  able  to 
make  good  terms  with  the  new ;  but  those  terms  have  all  one 
common  refrain  :  Stand  aside  for  your  successor,  peaceably  if  you 
will,  forcibly  if  we  must. 

Transforma-      Transformation,  however,  and  not  obliteration,  is 

tion,  not  ob-  .         ^     .  i      i  i 

literation.  the  governing  desire.  Grand  old  monuments,  that 
have  done  service  to  men  in  their  time,  like  the  Benedictine 
convent  of  Monte  Cassino,  too  remote  from  active  civilization 
to  be  beneficially  utilized,  will  remain  as  landmarks  in  history 
as  long  as  their  walls  hold  together.  Few  of  the  multitude 
that  fly  past  them  on  express  trains,  give  an  intelligent  glance 
at  their  sites.  Railroads  have  no  sympathy  with  the  picturesque 
and  heroic.  Their  shrill  pipings  are  for  crowded  tlioroughfares. 
Will  they  ever  be  raised  to  a  higher  oflice  than  that  of  carriers 
of  human  merchandise,  racing  against  time  ?  Our  epoch  is  one 
of  rapid  transitions.  Antiquity  has  wholly  disappeared.  Me- 
diaevalism  is  gasping  its  last.  The  Renaissance  has  gone  cor- 
rupt and  inane.  Modernism  has  not  yet  found  for  itself  satis- 
factory shapes.  In  its  innovations  .it  is  inflexibly  practical. 
What  these  seem  to  be  tending  to  in  art,  we  will  see  in  the 
review  of  other  countries.    Italy  has  opened  no  future  in  this 


PROFESSORS  A  CASTE. 


165 


direction.  She  scarcely  realizes  that  her  old  schools  died  with 
the  decay  of  those  religious  and  aristocratic  influences  that 
evoked  their  existence.  She  sees,  however,  that  at  present  her 
energies  must  be  given  to  the  solution  of  problems  of  more  vital 
importance.  Those  who  heretofore  guided  her  destinies  were  so 
eager  to  get  God  worshipped  by  lip  and  eye  service  that  they 
forgot  the  essential  matters  of  human  welfare.  This  error  has 
now  to  be  corrected.  Its  civilization  has  to  be  taught  to  go 
alone,  and  be  self-sustaining  in  the  people  themselves. 

But  church  and  state  have  been  so  long  in  selfish  copartner- 
ship, for  mutual  benefit,  that  the  latter  cannot  at  once  throw 
aside  all  her  pernicious  habits.  It  still  believes  in  substituting 
one  favored  class  interest  for  another ;  in  breeding  intellectual 
and  artistic  to  take  the  places  of  the  monastic  idlers.  For 
what  else  is  the  numerous  body  of  professors  who  obtain  their 
positions  by  favoritism,  and  are  paid  by  the  state  for  a  lax  sys- 
tem of  lecturing  that  has  slight  reference  to  the  actual  needs 
and  conditions  of  the  people  ?  There  are  about  one  thousand 
who  receive  salaries  and  emoluments  varying  from  twenty-five 
hundred  to  ten  thousand  francs,  in  return  for  which  they  are 
supposed  to  instruct  the  pupils  of  the  universities,  and  the  pub- 
lic at  large,  by  one  or  more  short  weekly  lectures  in  philology, 
philosophy,  poetry,  fine  arts,  history,  and  the  sciences.  So  far  as 
general  education  is  concerned,  the  system  is  a  delusion,  and  in 
practice,  an  empty  pretence  of  earning  the  stipends  and  secur- 
ing the  retiring  pensions.    Some  professors  are  actu-  The  Pro/es- 

X    1  1  111  1  •  .  ^        ,  -1  •'<ors  of  Italy 

ated.  by  an  honorable  ambition.  But  the  practical  re-  as  a  caste. 
suit  is  to  inspire  young  men  who  have  acquired  distinction 
among  their  friends  in  any  branch  of  learning  with  the  notion 
that  they  have  a  claim  on  the  state  for  support.  This  secured,  the 
next  ambition  is  to  arrive  at  the  highest  grade  of  salary  with  the 
least  possible  labor.  A  conscientious  professor  may  give  all  the 
lectures  required  by  the  university  rules,  but  an  indolent  one  may 
shirk  them,  I  am  told,  with  impunity.  A  professor  in  Italy  is, 
in  fact,  a  member  of  a  privileged  caste,  supported  at  the  expense 
of  the  bulk  of  tax-payers,  with  his  time  virtually  at  his  own  dis- 
posal, but  indulged  in  the  notion  that  he  is  of  some  special 
importance  to  the  community  which  honors  learning  in  support- 
ing him.  The  real  fact  is  that  there  is  more  of  healthful  future 
life  for  the  state  in  the  irrepressible  street  gamin,  who  has  just 
begun  to  appear,  than  in  him.  His  active  self-reliance  rebukes 
the  egotistical  dilettanteism  of  a  professor,  who  has  neither  taste 


166 


ITALIAN  LECTURING. 


for  popular  audiences  nor  capacity  to  create  them.  The  hours 
of  his  lectures  are  an  actual  prohibition  to  any  but  those  of 
fashionable  leisure.  If  they  were  not,  the  choice  and  treatment 
of  his  topics,  and  his  formal  manner  of  reading,  would  not  suit 
any  people.  An  English  or  American  lecturer  consults  the 
needs  and  tastes  of  the  public,  with  mutual  benefit.  The  stand- 
ard of  these  countries  has  been  as  much  raised  by  their  sys- 
tems of  voluntary  lecturing,  as  has  the  moral  and  religious  stand- 
ard of  America  by  a  free  church.  Yet  both  systems  are  only 
in  their  infancy.  English  and  American  audiences  are  num- 
bered by  thousands,  who  pay  of  their  own  accord  to  a  favorite 
lecturer,  as  much  for  a  single  evening's  instruction,  as  the  Italian 
receives  from  the  government  for  several  months'  nominal  work. 
In  Italy,  where  the  lectures  are  free,  a  professor  is  considered  as 
very  erudite  and  popular,  if  in  Florence  he  can  attract  an  aver- 
age attendance  of  one  hundred  persons,  one  half  of  whom  will 
be  foreigners,  who  go  for  a  lesson  in  the  language,  while  a  large 
proportion  of  the  remainder  are  personal  friends,  who  attend  out 
of  "  gentilezza^  Instead  of  promoting  education,  by  letting 
knowledge  make  its  own  market,  the  government  hinders  it,  by 
imitating  the  church,  in  adhering  to  a  system  which  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  exigencies  of  the  times  or  sympathies  of 
the  people. 

Old  ideas  —  idcas  and  old  saints  were  good  in  their  day, 

New  saints,  and  their  strength  lay  in  this  fact.  But  time  has  left 
most  of  them  so  far  behind  that  barren  words  are  all  that  is  now 
left  of  them.  These  cannot  longer  govern  or  content  mankind. 
Fresh  thoughts  and  heroes,  saints  of  a  new  order,  that  of  human- 
ity interpreted  in  the  broad  Christian  sense  of  fraternal  love, 
ousting  dogmatic  exclusivism  and  elected  salvation  from  their 
usurped  place  in  theologies,  are  the  signs  of  the  incoming  re- 
ligion of  the  peoples.  Popes  hitherto  have  decided  who  should 
be  canonized  and  what  should  be  worshipped ;  princes,  to  whom 
statues  should  be  erected,  honors  and  riches  given.  Now  the 
people  are  beginning  to  discern  their  heroes  and  saints.  St. 
Anthony,  St.  George,  St.  Anna,  and  St.  Denis,  are  far-away  ab- 
stractions of  virtues  —  myths  to  the  Romanists  and  fables  to  the 
Protestants.  But  free  men  of  all  tongues  and  dogmas  find  in 
certain  new  beings  the  realizations  of  those  deeds  and  convictions 
that  help  to  improve  their  common  lot.  Wellington,  the  peer 
saint  of  England,  provokes  in  them  defiant  skepticism ;  Louis 
Napoleon,  the  saint  of  the  Bourse  and  hero  of  political  chicanery, 


THE  MODERN  VENUS. 


167 


distrust  and  vexation.  But  every  noble  instinct  in  human  na- 
ture vibrates  with  hopeful  thrill  at  the  names  of  Saints  Watts, 
Franklin,  Rowland  Hill,  Lincoln,  Garibaldi,  John  Brown, 
Nightingale,  and  the  rest  of  the  disinterested  fighters  of  human- 
ity's battles. 

Sympathy  is  the  life-blood  of  art.  The  more  directly  per- 
sonal the  one  the  greater  the  force  of  the  other.  A  modern 
Venus  has  no  individual  interest.  The  Greeks  called  her  a 
goddess,  invented  a  history  of  her,  and  she  had  worshippers  in- 
numerable. After  the  same  manner  the  mediaevalists  got  their 
saints  revered.  Out  of  this  deep  devotion  great  art  came.  But 
the  modern  Italian  artist  no  longer  knows  the  mediaeval  samt  or 
antique  goddess  with  other  enthusiasm  than  that  of  money  or 
fame.  For  either  he  will  do  tolerably  clever,  academic  work, 
on  pagan  or  Christian  commission,  but  his  ideal  Venus  will  prove 
to  be  a  sensual  abstraction  and  his  devout  saint  a  conventional 
symbol  or  dogma.  Until  he  realizes  his  new  saints  and  deities, 
Italy  will  know  no  more  high  art. 

Italian  art  and  literature  are  too  much  a  reflection  Modem 
of  the  past.  The  former  especially  is  kept  in  exist- 
ence  by  its  traditions  and  erudition  rather  than  by  an  under- 
standing of  the  new  order  of  things.  The  government  considers 
it  a  duty  to  foster  art  by  means  of  academies,  competitive  ex- 
hibitions, free  lectures,  and  the  annual  purchase  of  certain  works. 
Art,  like  other  education,  being  made  a  pensioner  of  the  state, 
the  public,  as  is  to  be  expected,  assumes  no  responsibility  in  the 
matter,  except  under  official  pressure  or  professional  clap-trap 
when  some  personal  interest  is  at  stake.  There  are  no  Italian 
buyers  to  speak  of,  unless  a  few  amateurs  at  Naples  or  Milan 
suffice  to  represent  the  nation.  Works  purchased  by  the  govern- 
ment are  usually  put  where  they  are  seldom  seen.  This  is  of 
little  consequence,  because  in  general  they  are  not  worthy  of 
being  exhibited. 

In  old  historic  countries,  names  and  acts  identified  with  their 
fame  always  live,  though  more  or  less  vaguely,  in  the  popular 
mind,  and  when  selected  by  art,  awaken  a  feeling  of  national 
pride.  Sagaciously  treated  they  reinvigorate  patriotism  and 
piety.  Ussi's  "  Expulsion  of  the  Duke  of  Athens  from  Florence." 
a  forcible,  realistic  painting,  was  of  this  character.  As  signif- 
icant of  the  wished-for  exile  of  the  Grand  Duke,  and  driving 
the  Austrians  out  of  Tuscany,  it  was  heartily  welcomed.  But 
there  have  not  been  many  happy  efforts  in  this  direction.  Ussi 


168 


PEST  OF  MODERN  ART. 


himself  seems  to  be  exhausted  by  it.  Those  immense  scenic 
pictures,  of  the  "  Destruction  of  the  Cimbri  by  Marius,"  done  by 
Altamura,  are  mere  art-rant,  and  mark  the  last  stage  of  deca- 
dence of  high  historic  work.  Fedi's  marble  group  of  the  "  Rape 
of  Polyxena  "  has  been  placed  by  the  Florentines  in  competitive 
proximity  to  the  works  of  Michael  Angelo,  Donatello,  Cellini, 
and  Giovanni  da  Bologna.  It  is  a  noteworthy  example  of  the 
Italian  habit  of  looking  behind  instead  of  around  or  before  in 
art  and  literature.  Although  the  closely  stuck  drapery  has  a 
look  of  being  just  taken  out  of  a  wash-tub,  and  a  falling  figure 
is  always  a  grave  aesthetic  defect,  like  stuttering  in  speech,  yet 
as  a  whole  it  is  a  favorable  illustration  of  the  capacity  of  the 
modern  academicians  to  treat  whatever  motives  may  be  presented 
to  them  in  a  skilful  manner,  devoid  of  other  ambition  than  to 
-make  an  effective  tableau.  That  so  much  talent  and  money  can 
be  in  this  age  so  misplaced,  as  concerns  the  public,  is  a  direct 
imjDeachment  of  the  old  governmental  tyranny  over  the  artistic 
mind,  which  permitted  no  training  that  could  enlighten  the 
people  or  inspire  them  with  that  disquietude  in  existing  things 
that  prepares  the  way  for  something  better.  How  could  art 
thus  repressed  rise  higher  than  mere  mechanical  excellence  and 
a  tolerable  imitation  of  whatever  in  the  past  was  officially  en- 
dorsed as  politically  harmless  !  But  if  governments  prevent  the 
development  of  any  genuine  national  life  based  on  freedom,  the 
artist  also  has  much  to  answer  for  in  bringing  it  into  popular  dis- 
repute by  his  treatment  of  the  permitted  subjects. 

The  pest  of  modern  classical  and  religious  art  is  the  predom- 
inance of  the  model.  So  that  this  is  conspicuous,  and  the  artist 
himself  intrusively  manifested  by  visual  evidence  of  aca{3emic 
legerdemain,  the  fundamental  idea  is  left  to  shift  for  itself.  Out 
of  very  shame  at  its  ignoble  position  it  hides  its  ethereal  form 
from  mortal  eyes.  Something  beside  correct  drawing  and  paint- 
ing, even  when  these  are  attained,  is  required  to  make  an  artist. 
Good  modelling,  coloring,  and  composition  are  means,  not  ends. 
If  an  author  has  nothing  to  say,  fine  words  only  serve  to  make 
his  ignorance  more  evident  to  those  who  look  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  things.  This  is  equally  true  of  art,  though  the  aesthetic 
senses,  being  more  susceptible  to  flattery  at  first  blnsh  than 
the  other  intellectual  faculties,  becaus^e  of  their  general  want  of 
training,  they  are  even  oftener  deceived  into  accepting  tlie  show 
for  the  substance  of  truth.  How  common  it  is  now  to  see  what 
are  called  beautiful  works  without  any  deeper  emotion  than 


BENVENUTrS  FRESCOES. 


169 


transient  admiration  of  their  clever  execution !  They  fade  from 
the  memory  at  once.  When  this  is  the  case,  either  the  work 
has  no  substantial  merit  in  itself,  or  there  is  nothing  in  the  spec- 
tator's mind  in  affinity  with  it.  This  last  may  arise  from  igno- 
rance or  obtuseness  of  feeling,  but  it  may  be  that  the  motive  of 
the  work  is  foreign  to  the  sentiment  and  thoughts  of  the  epoch. 
Art  of  this  character,  however  learned  and  arrogant,  has  no 
legitimate  claim  on  the  people. 

Benvenuti's  showy  frescoes  in  the  Medicean  Chapel  at  Flor- 
ence, and  his  stupendous  cartoons  hung  up  like  trophies  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Francesco  at  Arezzo,  are  fine  specimens  of  modern 
eclecticism  after  the  David  style,  as  are  Canova's  sculptures  of 
his  classical  schooling.  But  all  such  work,  tasteful  and  admi- 
rable as  it  may  seem,  ranks  as  prize  art,  and  may  be  developed 
anywhere  by  forced  culture  and  rewards  of  merit.  Deriving 
no  sustenance  from  the  life  of  a  people,  the  sensation  it  excites 
is  partial  and  transitory,  giving  way  to  the  next  novelty  of 
aestlietic  fashion.  Its  valuable  technical  qualities  work  mischief 
when  they  are  mistaken  for  high  art  itself.  Unless  Italy  ceases 
as  entirely  to  live  in  her  old  aesthetic,  as  in  her  effete  ecclesias- 
tical and  political  training,  her  promise  of  a  future  in  art  com- 
mensurate to  her  ancient  renown  is  absolutely  nothing.  New 
Italy  must  make  its  gods  in  its  own  image,  and  not  under  the 
pressure  of  past  form  and  example.  It  is  difficult  to  bring  the 
artistic  mind  to  a  recognition  of  this  fundamental  psychological 
truth.  A  nation,  like  an  individual,  can  make  a  genuine  character 
for  itself  only  by  strenuous  exertions  in  harmony  with  its  peculiar 
circumstances.  Now,  the  clever  artists  of  Italy  look  two  ways 
at  once  for  guidance  :  one  eye  turned  to  antiquity,  the  other  to 
the  imperial  French  schools,  which  are  as  bad  guides  in  refound- 
ing  their  national  art  as  are  Napoleonic  ideas  in  remodelling 
their  government.  We  can  have  fashions  of  art  at  any  moment 
by  the  same  means  and  from  similar  sources  that  give  Fashions  of 
thie  cut  to  our  clothes.  Create  a  pecuniary  demand 
for  anything  of  mere  superficial  worth,  and  its  prolific  manu- 
facture is  sure  to  follow.  But  the  genuine  art  of  a  people 
precedes  the  stimulus  of  money,  which  more  often  corrupts  and 
debases  than  exalts  its  character.  If  an  artist  aspire  to  be  re- 
membered beyond  the  fleeting  glance  of  the  seeker  of  sensuous 
sensations  he  must  show  that  he  is  in  earnest  himself.  If 
my  reader  doubt  my  sincerity,  he  will  have  thrown  down  the 
book  in  disgust  before  this,  without  troubling  himself  to  test  its 


170 


GOTHIC  TOMBS. 


truth.  Where  a  people  are  indifferent  to  art,  it  is  certain  that 
either  there  is  no  art  for  them  to  see,  as  in  America,  or  as  it 
now  is  in  Italy,  none  of  the  time  worthy  to  be  seen. 

As  examples  of  mediaeval  faith  and  earnestness  to  contrast  with 
modern  treatment  of  similar  motives,  look  at  the  Gothic  tombs 
of  Ubertino  di  Bardi  in  St.  Croce,  Florence,  by  Giottino,  and  of 
Niccolo  Acciajuoli,  by  Orgagna,  in  the  subterranean  church  of 
the  Certosa.  Some  living  artists  might  give  more  correctly 
modelled  or  drawn  conventional  figures  to  support  the  sarcoph- 
agus or  receive  the  risen  Bardi  in  the  heaven  to  which  he 
looks  with  clasped  hands,  but  not  one  could  compose  a  monument 
so  Christian  in  feeling,  and  so  thoroughly  beautiful  and  elegant 
in  form,  and  with  such  purity  of  design.  The  same  remark  ap- 
plies to  Orgagna's  monument  of  the  knightly  founder  of  Certosa. 
He  lies  on  his  back  in  full  armor,  in  marble  sleep,  with  a  calm 
assurance  of  immortality  lighting  up  his  war-worn  features. 
The  face  of  Donatello's  warrior-saint  in  fighting  guise,  await- 
ing the  attack  of  the  arch-enemy  of  man,  is  not  more  aglow 
than  his !  There  is  still  another  sepulchral  monument  which 
forcibly  illustrates  the  superiority  of  idea  and  execution  of  the 
medisevalists  in  work  of  this  nature  over  all  subsequent,  of 
which,  not  to  mention  the  inane  productions  of  the  present,  the 
empty -minded  monuments  of  the  later  Renaissance,  in  Santo 
Croce  at  Florence,  erected  to  Michael  Angelo  and  Dante,  are 
conspicuous  examples.  The  one  referred  to,  seldom  visited,  is 
in  the  little  church  of  San  Francesco  di  Paolo  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  of  Bellosguardo,  and  was  put  up  in  memory  of  Frederigo, 
Bishop  of  Fiesole,  a.  d.  1459.  Being  the  work  of  Lucca  della 
Robbia,  it  is  a  simple  and  truthful  specimen  of  realistic  sculp- 
ture, broadly  treated,  and  with  deep  religious  repose.  Nowhere 
is  the  Christian  notion  of "  sleeping  in  Jesus  "  more  admirably 
prefigured  than  in  the  placid  slumber  of  the  hopeful  prelate. 
Evidently  he  will  rise  in  joy  unspeakable  at  the  first  note  of  the 
trumpet  of  resurrection. 

Turn  now  to  Dupre's  "  Pieta,"  a  much  lauded  specimen  of  the 
Christian  art  of  a.  d.  1867.  Some  may  claim  that  the  dra- 
pery and  anatomy  are  more  scientifically  treated  than  ^  in  the 
mediaeval  sculpture,  though  they  certainly  do  not  appear  to  me 
as  being  as  correct  in  relation  to  the  impression  to  be  conveyed 
as  a  whole,  however  true  any  special  detail  may  be.  The  com- 
position is  one  of  the  frantic-ludicrous  efforts  which  the  sensa- 
tional art  of  the  day  delights  in  ;  Dupre's  "  Cain  "  being  another 


BASTIANINl  AND  DUPRE. 


171 


though  less  absurd  exhibition  of  spasmodic  posing  of  limbs  and 
features  in  lieu  of  real  passion.  Such  is  the  gesture  and  look 
of  the  Virgin  as  she  bows  her  head  searchingly  over  the  hair  of 
her  half-raised  son,  that  irreverent  wits  insist  that  she  is  only 
expressing  a  mother's  indignant  surprise  at  finding  it  full  of 
insects  not  to  be  named  to  ears  polite.  Sacred  art  which  can 
suggest  this  idea  cannot  edify  much. 

The  Neapolitan  Morelli  paints  sacred  subjects  in  a  less  lu- 
dicrous, declamatory  style,  but  after  a  curious  manner,  equally 
removed  from  any  profound  feeling.  He  is  versatile  and  clever, 
but  neither  sincere  nor  skilful  enough  to  revive  the  dubious 
merits  of  the  Spagnuola  school  of  his  native  city,  whose  techni- 
cal eccentricities  he  affects.  So  far  as  my  observation  goes,  the 
"  professors  "  of  art,  like  those  of  literature,  darken  knowledge 
rather  than  enlighten  the  people  or  advance  taste. 

Ill-fated  Bastianini,  whose  countrymen  allowed  him  to  starve 
on  the  wretched  stipend  of  a  hric-a-hrac  dealer  until  they  awoke 
to  his  merits  only  to  see  him  die,  was  a  noteworthy  exception 
to  the  general  want  of  original  talent  and  genuine  feeling  of 
modern  Italian  sculptors.  The  authorities  of  the  Louvre  Gal- 
lery have  borne  striking  testimony  to  his  capacity  of  modelling 
after  the  forcible  realistic  manner  of  the  school  of  Donatello  by 
buying,  for  thirteen  thousand  six  hundred  francs,  his  bust  of  the 
Florentine  poet  Jerome  Benivieni  who  flourished  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  made  in  imitation  of  the  style  then  in  vogue.  It  was 
modelled  from  the  person  of  a  cigar-maker  dressed  in  the  costume 
of  the  poet's  time,  and  sold  to  an  antiquary  for  three  hundred  and 
sixty  francs,  who  resold  it  to  the  French  dealer  of  whom  his 
government  bought  it,  installing  it  among  the  genuine  works  of 
Michael  Angelo,  Settignano,  and  Cellini  even  after  the  proofs  of 
the  imposition  were  given  to  the  public.  Other  specimens  of 
his  ability  to  recall  the  souvenirs  of  the  past  Italian  sculpture 
have  been  from  time  to  time,  through  no  connivance  of  his, 
passed  oflf  as  genuine  mediaeval  work. 

If  Italy  were  to  lose  the  misdirected  stimulus  of  government  and 
the  foreign  demand  for  her  mechanical  repetitions  and  imitations 
of  her  former  art,  principally  in  its  cheaper  decorative  aspects, 
every  semblance  of  her  old  art  life  would  be  gone.  Italy  now 
offers  the  cheapest  market  for  aesthetic  commonplaces.  When  the 
idea  of  art  is  limited  to  grubbing  among  the  half-buried  works 
of  former  ages,  it  is  well  to  obtain  it  on  the  spot  where  its  objects 
can  be  manufactured  with  the  most  facility.    Still,  the  realistic 


172 


APATHY  TO  LANDSCAPE. 


spirit  of  the  century  is  showing  itself  even  here.  True  there  is 
no  landscape  art  proper,  as  at  the  north.  Italians  of  the  upper 
class,  when  they  walk,  which  they  seldom  do,  apparently  consider 
it  a  positive  hardship,  or  else  a  dainty  condescension  on  their 
part  towards  mother  earth,  for  which  she  should  be  proud. 
To  complete  their  satisfaction,  in  their  brief  promenade,  they 
must  be  followed  like  shadows  by  servants  in  livery  at  a  set 
distance,  and  be  surrounded  by  a  throng  of  fashionists,  whose 
personal  appearance  eclipses  in  their  eyes  any  charms  of  nature. 
Italians,  however,  have  an  intense  admiration,  in  general  volubly 
expressed,  for  the  charms  of  the  human  figure,  second  only  to 
their  delight  in  tasteful  dress.  But  what  Italian  gentleman  ever 
looks  upon  the  landscape  with  hearty  English  enjoyment,  and 
makes  any  exertion  to  reach  it,  or  ever  alludes  to  it  in  conversa- 
tion? Those  who  can  aflford  villas  have  a  sort  of  kid-glove 
taste  for  gardens  mostly  trimmed  and  arranged  after  a  barber- 
shop fashion ;  a  rococo  arrangement  of  flower-pots,  fountains, 
vases,  bric-a-brac  objects,  and  redundant  sculptures  :  sometimes 
painted  wooden  figures,  sentinels  on  duty,  and  miniature  forts 
and  castles,  with  geometrically  laid-out  walks  and  vegetation  cut 
and  tormented  into  formal  uunaturalness.^  The  tradesman 
takes  his  taste  from  his  superiors.  With  them  artifice  equally 
distorts  or  misrepresents  nature,  only  its  forms  are  more  on  the 
scale  of  toys.  As  for  the  average  peasant,  any  genuine  sym- 
pathy with  the  landscape  would  be  an  intellectual  operation  out 
of  his  range.  I  recollect  calling  the  attention  of  one  to  a  beau- 
tiful view  near  Serravallo.  The  sole  response  was,  that  since 
the  change  of  government  everything  had  gone  bad,  meaning 
really  that  wine,  salt,  and  bread  were  dearer,  and  beyond  their 
connection  with  the  landscape  it  was  nothing  to  him. 

This  universal  apathy  as  regards  one  of  the  most  simple  and 
satisfactory  sources  of  human  happiness  in  a  country  where  it 
richly  abounds,  springs  from  no  inherent  defect  of  aesthetic  tem- 
perament, but  from  a  defective  mental  training,  which  has  made 
the  Italians  the  most  materialistic  and  least  imaginative  of  civil- 
ized peoples.  Extremely  quick  and  acute  in  observation,  with 
the  seekers  of  pleasure,  their  desire  goes  towards  persons  and 
that  which,  to  use  their  peculiar  phrase,  "  makes  a  figure  "  in  the 
world.    With  the  studious  it  is  directed  towards  abstract  sci- 

1  The  oddest  bit  of  decorative  sculpture  I  ever  saw  was  in  a  Roman  villa.  It 
consisted  of  a  painted  stone  sheet  or  piece  of  household  drapery  hanging  out  of 
a  mock  window  as  if  to  dry. 


GENRE  PAINTERS. 


173 


ence,  antiquarianism,  dilettanteism,  and  whatever  regards  man's 
past  history  more  than  his  present  relations  to  the  nature  amid 
which  he  dwells.  While  the  public  mind  remains  in  this  condi- 
tion there  is  no  base  for  landscape  painting. 

Genre  motives  are  not  so  entirely  wanting  as  those  of  land- 
scape. Some  stone  carvers  put  pantaloons  on  their  Cupids  as  a 
concession  to  modern  realism,  and  sell  scores  of  stone  Washing- 
tons  and  Franklins  in  the  guise  of  little  boys,  with  hatchets  and 
whistles  in  their  hands.  Others  carve  the  fleeting  modes  of  the 
day  on  the  effigies  of  their  sitters,  without  regard  to  idealism  of 
any  sort.  There  are  several  genre  painters,  but  of  no  special 
promise.  The  present  incapacity  of  Italians  in  this  direction 
must  be  seen  to  be  understood.  It  proceeds  from  the  national  in- 
aptitude of  enjoyment  of  this  class  of  motives.  Animals  are  as 
.much  neglected  as  the  landscape.  In  caricature  there  is  more 
native  talent  displayed  in  personal  and  political  subjects,  and  of 
a  much  higher  grade,  than  in  France.  Architecture  shares  the 
low  condition  of  the  other  branches.  There  is,  however,  among 
persons  of  culture  a  loving  appreciation  of  whatever  is  fine 
in  the  past;  pride  in  preserving  it,  and  nice  aesthetic  discern- 
ment displayed  in  designs  for  completing  or  restoring  me- 
diaeval work  in  the  likeness  of  the  original.  But  the  restora- 
tions of  the  Duomo  of  Perugia  are  as  bad  as  can  be,  being 
of  a  meretricious  cafe  order.  Not  even  in  America  can  there 
be  found  public  buildings  more  wanting  in  aesthetic  character 
than  recent  edifices  constructed  for  the  Italian  government,  espe- 
cially in  Florence.  It  is  incomprehensible  how  the  architects 
succeeded,  in  face  of  the  old  architecture  of  the  city,  in  uniting 
so  much  homeliness  and  wrongness  of  general  masses,  mostly 
sham  constructive  ornamentation,  to  so  much  absolute  poverty 
or  ugliness  of  detail.  The  late  Renaissance  exhausted  the  base 
capacities  of  meretricious  sensuality  and  pride  of  vulgar  dis- 
play ;  but  this  modern  no-style  is  the  very  idealism  of  aesthetic 
meanness  and  incapacity.  Turin  shows  somewhat  better  work. 
The  constructive  features  of  its  great  railway  station  are  ap- 
propriate and  dignified,  manifesting  fair  inventive  talent  in  the 
direction  that  modern  architecture  on  a  large  scale,  combining 
popular  uses  and  needs  with  grandeur  of  effect,  seems  likely  to 
take.  Many  of  the  decorative  details,  however,  are  unworthy 
of  its  general  appearance. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  necessary  to  mention  two  works,  as  show- 
ing some  disposition  upon  the  part  of  modern  Italian  artists  to 


174 


DEVIL  IN  MODERN  ART. 


escape  out  of  the  worn  idealisms  and  traditions  of  the  past  into 
fresher  motives  and  styles.  One  of  these  is  the  well-known 
"  Dying  Napoleon  "  of  Vela,  which  is  as  thoroughly  realistic  in 
conception  and  execution  as  the  most  ardent  advocate  of  realism 
could  desire,  and  not  without  some  of  the  sentiment  which  at- 
taches itself  to  the  moribund  warrior  and  lawgiver  of  nations. 
The  other  is  a  pure  piece  of  idealism,  novel  for  the  school,  and 
indeed  new  as  a  matter  of  heroic  sculpture  in  any  now  ;  or  was, 
when  it  was  first  put  up  in  plaster  ten  years  ago.  Since  then 
the  Devil  is  becoming  a  popular  motive  of  modern  sculpture, 
especially  with  Americans,  of  two  types :  one,  the  wicked  gen- 
tleman, the  Mephistophiles  of  modern  society,  its  ideal  bad 
man  in  fine  clothes  with  fine  manners,  dangerous  in  particular  to 
the  female  sex,  such  as  Mr.  Gould's  admirable  bust  makes  him ; 
and  the  other,  the  arch  enemy  of  mankind  and  the  Almighty, 
the  Scriptural  Lucifer,  as  conceived  by  Corti  of  Milan,  and 
ordered  to  be  executed  in  marble  for  the  Count  d'  Aquila, 
brother  of  the  ex-king  of  Naples.  Corti  makes  no  vulgar 
Satan  with  horns,  hoofs,  and  tail,  the  superlative  ugly  monster 
of  mediaevalism,  but  a  veritable  fallen  Son  of  the  Morning; 
majestic  in  form,  strong  of  limb,  determined  of  will,  supernal 
in  figure,  but  sinister  of  aspect :  a  being  enveloped  in  doubt, 
despair,  and  guilt ;  sufficiently  attractive  in  mien  to  cast  a  spell 
over  men  or  draw  their  sinful  yearnings  towards  his  by  force  of 
congenial  sympathy,  ^sthetically  criticised,  it  is  a  genuine 
Satan  of  the  right  stamp  to  fascinate,  tempt,  or  terrify  mortals ; 
one  of  themselves  superhumanly  wicked,  powerful,  and  ambi- 
tious. As  a  conception  it  is  not  so  original  as  it  looks  at  first. 
The  ancient  Etruscans  put  many  figures  of  similar  type  and  im- 
port into  their  sepulchral  art ;  beneficent  and  maleficent  genii, 
or  furies,  they  called  them.  It  is  nevertheless  a  wholesome 
symptom  of  progress  to  find  at  least  one  Italian  sculptor  of  to- 
day turning  to  the  genius  of  his  remote  ancestors  for  guidance 
and  ideas  in  the  grander  elements  of  art  in  which  they  were 
conspicuously  original  and  great. 

The  appearance  of  the  supernal  and  gentlemanly  types  of 
the  Devil  in  modern  art  is  one  of  its  significant  features  and  of 
itself  significant.  Even  an  American  lady  of  some  reputation 
as  a  sculptor.  Miss  Stebbins  of  Eome,  has  essayed  him  in  a 
heroic  guise,  in  armor,  as  just  descended  on  the  earth  to  begin 
his  mission  of  evil.  We  may  yet  see  his  colossal  effigy  figure  in 
public  edifices  and  grounds,  and  his  statuettes,  as  the  polite  gen- 


CORTFS  EXAMPLE. 


175 


tleman  of  society,  no  questions  asked  as  to  moral  character,  in 
ladies'  boudoirs  and  parlors.  At  all  events  the  Devil  has  now 
got  a  firm  footing  in  modern  art,  but  with  what  results  for  good 
or  bad,  remains  to  be  seen. 

Despite  Corti's  example,  for  the  moment  Italy  has  neither  an 
ideal  art  like  its  old,  nor  has  it  yet  developed  the  realistic  art, 
which  dominates  in  countries  more  especially  governed  by 
democratic  ideas  and  superior  habits  of  domestic  life.  But  the 
prevailing  disquiet  points  to  radical  changes,  which  may  finally 
recreate  art  on  a  more  popular  basis,  revivify  religion,  and  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare  of  the  country.  Unless  this  is  accom- 
plished there  is  even  less  practical  foundation  for  Gioberti's 
theory  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Latin  races  in  Italy  than  in 
France,  under  the  guidance  of  Napoleonic  ideas.  How  can 
any  student  or  statesman  maintain  such  an  illusion  in  face  of 
the  rapid  advance  and  increasing  pressure  of  the  Teutonic  and 
Anglo-Saxon  peoples  over  all  the  Latin  forms  of  civilization  in 
the  present  juncture  of  human  destiny  ! 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  ART  OF  HOLLAND,  BELGIUM,  SPAIN,  AND  GERMANY. 

E  have  noticed  how  the  invention  of  printing  and 
Luther's   Reformation  displaced  reliaj-   „  .  .  ^. 

TTT     1     T     1        1  11  1    Printing  dis- 

lous  art.  Words  displaced  symbols,  and  places  reiig. 
book-discussion  supplanted  fresco-paint-  • 
ing.  Thenceforth,  images  of  divine  things  ceased 
to  be  made  by  hands,  but  were  formed  in  the  mind  and  conveyed 
from  one  to  another  as  intangible  thought,  to  take  shape  and 
color  according  to  idiosyncrasies  of  imagination.  Printed  books 
in  consequence  became  the  means  of  a  vast  step  forward  in 
intellectual  freedom  and  general  culture.  Wherever  they  were 
freely  admitted,  the  old  religious  art  either  degenerated  into  a 
spurious  foshion,  having  no  vital  force,  or  it  was  denounced  as 
idolatry  and  eventually  cast  out  of  its  fanes,  or  destroyed.  For 
those  who  agree  in  relation  to  art  that  what  has  been  may  again 
be,  it  is  requisite  to  look  back  on  the  causes  of  sweeping  changes 
like  the  above,  and  see  if  they  are  of  a  fundamental  or  acci- 
dental nature,  before  they  can  rightly  determine  their  final 
operation.  To  me  it  looks  as  if  the  influences  which  put  an 
end  to  the  great  religious  period  of  European  art,  are  of  a 
radical  and  permanent  character,  belonging  to  the  logical  se- 
quence of  development  of  the  human  mind  in  its  advance  from 
concrete  to  abstract  idealisms.  If  poetry,  the  drama,  and  prose 
of  a  high  order  are  more  subtle  mediums  of  intellectual  expres- 
sion than  sculpture  and  painting,  are  they  not  the  finer  art? 
Who  shall  say  that  in  their  turn  they  may  not  give  way  to  some 
more  complete  method  of  mental  intercommunication  !  For  the 
present,  however,  in  the  ratio  of  the  culture  of  peoples,  litera- 
ture is  the  popular  fine-art.  I  cannot  believe  that  any  nation, 
having  won  intellectual  and  religious  freedom,  will  ever  be 
successful,  while  books  are  easily  to  be  had,  in  any  spasmodic 
attempt  to  replace  religious  art  on  its  old  foundations.  That 
was  the  natural  outgrowth  of  its  own  time,  just  as  education  by 
means  of  books  is  of  ours.    Painting  and  sculpture  have  lost 


SPIRIT  OF  SPANISH  ART. 


177 


their  primitive  authority  and  functions  in  respect  to  education. 
For  the  future  they  must  be  satisfied  with  their  more  legiti- 
mate office  of  contributing  to  the  happiness  of  men,  less  as 
religious  instructors  than  as  aesthetic  comforters  and  illustra- 
tors at  second-hand,  of  ideas  which  find  their  first  expression 
in  books.  This  will  tend  more  and  more  to  make  art  a  fruit 
of  national  culture  rather  than  to  take  the  initiative  in  civiliza- 
tion. Keeping  this  in  view  we  get  a  ready  clue  to  its  varying 
conditions  and  absolute  changes  since  Protestantism  has  altered 
the  mental  aspect  of  Europe. 

The  popes  put  down  Protestant  ideas  in  Italy  not 
so  much  by  direct  force  as  by  the  encouragement  popesputout- 
given  to  the  revival  of  pagan  literature  and  art,  taken  ideas  iT 
into  the  service  of  infidel   tyrants  both  of  church 
and  state,  and  in  their  hands  reduced  to  the  degraded  forms- 
and  motives  I  have  already  described.    Like  the  Indians  on 
our  prairies  when  encircled  by  one   fire,  they  fought  it  by 
another.    It  is  true  they  preserved  their  positions,  but  it  was 
at  the  sacrifice  of  the  welfare  of  their  subjects.    Finally  they 
have  the  bitterness  of  seeing  those  Protestant  ideas,  which  they 
tried  to  keep  out  of  Italy,  returning  in  force  to  overthrow  their- 
systems  of  government  and  religion. 

Sustained  by  absolute  kings  and  the  Inquisition,  religious  art 
made  its  last  serious  stand  in  Spain,  more  than  a  century  after 
it  had  elsewhere  become  a  sensual  phantom  or  an  inane  pre- 
tence. It  was  here  kept  alive  by  the  virtual  prohibition  of 
printing  and  the  absolute  restriction  of  education  to  priest- 
craft. In  an  intellectual  point  of  view  it  had  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  that  of  Italy.  Rigorously  confined  to  a  fanatical 
and  idolatrous  aspect  of  worship,  it  became  alike  degrading  to 
man  and  Deity.  What  else  could  art  become  in  the  hands  of 
an  ignorant  clergy  and  bigoted  statesmen,  who,  taking  away 
its  proper  functions,  reduced  it  to  the  lowest  ascetic  standard, 
scarcely  one  grade  above  fetichism,  making  physical  degra- 
dation and  mental  abasement  fill  the  same  final  place  in  their 
system  that  human  beauty  and  heroic  virtue  did  in  ancient 
Greece  ? 

The  artistic  capacity  of  the  Spanish  nation  is  abundantly 
proved  by  Morales,  Cano,  Velasquez,  and  Murillo,  as  well  as 
by  the  taste  of  several  rulers,  in  securing  some  of  the  most 
precious  specimens  of  the  Italian  schools,  despite  the  excluding 
canons  of  a  persecuting  church.  Neither  Egypt  nor  India  in 
12 


178 


SPIRIT  OF  SPANISH  ART, 


the  fulness  of  their  sacerdotal  zeal  was  more  intolerant  in 
matters  of  art  than  Spain.  The  artist  could  paint  or  carve 
only  such  subjects  as  suited  his  theological  despots,  and  accord- 
ing to  an  unalterable  formula  of  execution.  Consequently  we 
have  in  Spain  an  ecclesiastical  but  no  national  school  of  art. 
As  the  Spaniards  are  prone  to  excessive  passions,  and  in  their 
amusements  and  contests  are  bloody-minded  and  sensual,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  had  not  their  art  been  thus  held  in 
strict  ascetic  check  and  external  decorum,  it  would  have  rev- 
elled in  the  nude,  vulgar,  and  cruel ;  not  after  the  coarse  little- 
ness and  superficial  materiality  of  the  Dutchmen,  but  in  a 
passionate  splendor  which  might  have  made  the  spectator 
forget  its  sins  against  humanity.  But  the  evil  side  of  the 
Spanish  temperament  is  in  large  measure  the  product  of  his 
creed  and  government.  There  are  certain  religious  crimes  so 
profound  that  they  spring  upon  the  imagination  like  virtues, 
just  as  some  aristocratic  follies  seem  magnanimous  in  first 
blush  from  their  frankness.  Spaniards  have  been  so  long  the 
dupes  of  their  priests  and  rulers  in  both  cases,  that  they  have 
themselves  acquired  from  them  a  counterfeit  magnificence  and 
frankness  of  wrong-thinking  and  doing  that  obfuscates  the 
moral  sense,  and  hinders  national  progress.  A  bigoted  art, 
born  of  a  religion  fed  on  outrages  against  the  rights  of  men, 
could  not  fail  to  be  harmful  by  infiltrating  public  taste  with  its 
own  remorseless  spirit,  approval  of  ignorance  and  idleness,  and 
greed  of  blood.  So  far  as  concerns  morality  and  intellectuality, 
Spanish  art,  like  the  state  religion,  has  been  a  positive  curse. 
Although  the  Inquisition  could  control  its  topics  and  treat- 
ment to  their  own  ends,  they  had  not  the  same  power  over  the 
aesthetic  temperament  itself,  whose  instinctive  choice  was  to 
common  realistic  types,  a  splendid  coarseness  of  execution, 
glowing,  luminous,  sensualized  tones  of  coloring,  and  a  morbid 
satisfaction  in  gloom,  sorrow,  suffering,  despotic  authority  or 
ignoble  sacrifice ;  and  finally  in  the  predominance  given  the 
material  and  external,  whether  of  princely  or  sacred  motives, 
over  the  spiritual  and  intellectual.  Spanish  art  is  almost  ex- 
clusively emotional  in  intent  or  else  given  to  the  expression  of 
one  idea  or  phase  of  character,  which  makes  it  restrictive  and 
narrow.  What  is  lacking  in  intellectual  breadth  and  variety, 
is  made  up  in  depth  of  sentiment  and  vigorous  execution. 
Its  sincerity  adds  a  quasi  dignity  even  to  ordinary  motives. 
Further,  there  is  a  passionate  mystery  or  technical  force  in  its 
dramatic  coloring,  which  appalls  or  fascinates  at  first  look. 


MURILLO  AND  VELASQUEZ. 


179 


Murillo  kept  common  company  as  much  as  he  dared,  j^^^n^ 
His  virgins,  angels,  and  saints  are  slightly  elevated  Velasquez. 
types  of  tlie  people  around  him.  Beggar-boys  and  mendicant 
monks  suited  him  well ;  but  above  all  the  palpitating  charms  of 
the  maidens  of  his  ardent  cHmate  in  their  virgin  ripeness.  But 
the  Inquisition  scourged  the  sensuous  activity  of  his  temperament 
into  an  ascetic  discipline,  which  deprived  the  world  of  the  finest 
fruits  of  his  talents,  and  reduced  him  to  a  half  use  of  his  legiti- 
mate genius. 

Velasquez's  career  was  that  of  a  petted  court  painter.  His 
brush  ennobled  those  who  failed  to  ennoble  themselves,  or  had 
nothing  but  insignia  of  rank  to  make  them  known.  He  intensi- 
fied the  dominant  traits  of  his  sitters,  making  them  acutely  char- 
acteristic, without  any  of  the  mock  heroic  idealisms  that  Rubens 
indulged  in  with  his  Bourbons.  But  his  chief  power  was  in  an 
aristocratic  largeness  of  design,  naturalness  of  style,  sparkle,  and 
emphasis,  more  effectually  realistic  than  the  utmost  Dutch  finish. 
He  did  not  rival  Murillo  in  sensuous  diaphanous  coloring,  though 
excelling  him  in  light  and  atmosphere,  in  grave  splendor,  subtle, 
and  forcible  delineation  of  character  and  depth  of  effect. 

We  need  not  look  for  the  poetical  or  imaginative  in  Spanish  art ; 
seldom  for  very  refined  treatment,  and  never  for  any  intellectual 
elevation  above  the  actual  life  out  of  which  it  drew  its  restricted 
stock-motives.  What  could  be  expected  of  painting  in  a  country 
where  masked  inquisitors  visited  every  studio  and  either  destroyed 
or  daubed  over  any  details  that  did  not  accord  with  their  fanat- 
ical scruples  ;  of  sculpture  which  was  dressed  or  painted  to  imi- 
tate actual  life,  and  where  an  artist  could  not  destroy  the  labor 
of  his  own  hands,  if  a  sacred  image,  without  risk  of  being  put  to 
torture  for  sacrilege  ?  There  are  admirable  points  in  Spanish 
painting,  but  it  is  not  a  school  of  popular  value  or  interest.  Be- 
sides its  two  chief  names  it  has  no  reputation  beyond  its  own 
locality.  The  fixed  purpose  of  its  priest-ridden  work  was  to 
stultify  the  human  intellect  and  make  life  a  burden  instead  of  a 
blessing. 

Holland  was  as  antagonistic  to  Spain  in  her  art  as  school  of 
her  politics.  Here  the  Reformation  took  firm  root, 
democratic  habits  got  the  ascendency,  and  a  people  for  the  first 
time  since  the  death  of  Christ  had  their  own  way  in  art,  un- 
checked by  reasons  of  government  or  creed.  As  regards  high  art 
the  result  was  not  edifying,  but  it  demonstrated  the  wisdom  of 
leaving  artists  and  amateurs  free  to  exercise  their  taste  and 


180 


DUTCH  PAINTING. 


skill  as  seemed  to  them  best.  Dutch  painters  may  be  called  the 
natural  product  of  their  country,  in  the  same  sense  that  canals 
and  dykes  were  the  necessary  features  of  its  landscape.  Having 
reached  the  mental  level  of  those  they  worked  for,  they  rested 
contentedly  in  view  of  flat  horizons  and  unsesthetic  common- 
places, satisfied  to  gain  money  by  a  painstaking  imitation  of  the 
externals  of  the  scenery  and  life  around  them,  just  as  their 
patrons  made  their  fortunes  in  the  same  scenes  by  a  never  flag- 
ging attention  to  profit  and  loss.  The  more  intellectual  wants 
of  Dutchmen  were  supplied  by  a  printed  literature,  that  made 
them  pious  and  patriotic,  as  well  as  clear-headed  in  trade  and 
independent  in  politics.  They  were  as  much  inclined  to  keep 
the  liberty  they  had  won  with  their  swords  as  the  money  they 
had  made  in  their  business.  In  past  times  high  art  had  been  as- 
sociated with  the  tyranny  they  had  overthrown.  Art  they  still 
liked  and  would  have.  But  it  must  be  their  boon  friend  and 
entertainer.  So  they  tore  down  its  old  forms  from  church  and 
palace,  as  things  evil  and  false,  and  took  its  spirit  into  their 
shops  and  to  their  firesides  to  be  recast  into  shapes  that  should 
amuse  their  wives  and  little  ones.  As  was  natural,  these  wives, 
children,  and  the  stout  burghers,  too,  had  an  honest  liking  for 
those  objects  most  intimately  associated  with  their  notions  of 
pleasure  and  prosperity.  They  did  not  want  art  to  teach  them 
ideas  but  to  represent  things.  Compared  with  that  of  the 
Soutliern  races  theirs  was  as  distinct  in  its  foundations,  motives, 
and  aims  as  trade  is  from  poetry.  In  the  first  place  it  was 
chiefly  an  in-door,  easel  art,  almost  as  cheap  and  portable  as 
books  themselves,  and  with  producer  and  buyer  ruled  by  com- 
mercial principles.  Outside  of  the  ordinary  stimulus  of  business 
and  popular  likings  it  had  no  abiding  inspiration.  Nor  had  it 
any  special  ambitions,  enthusiasms,  or  idealisms,  such  as  are  the 
roots  of  a  high  art.  Whatever  a  patron  would  pay  for  the 
artist  would  produce  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  He  worked  for 
a  ready  market.  Whether  the  character  of  his  art  was  in  itself 
good  or  evil  was  to  him  of  as  little  consequence  as  is  to  the  rum- 
seller  the  eflects  of  his  liquors  on  the  health  of  his  customers. 
Dutch  art  was  made  to  be  sold,  and  its  ethics  assume  no  higher 
standard.  Spanish  art  was  made  to  dogmatize,  threaten,  and  im- 
pose lies  on  a  nation  ;  to  seduce  it  from  truth  and  justice,  in- 
dependent judgment  in  matters  terrestrial  or  celestial,  and  to 
blind  obedience  in  things  present  in  order  to  win  the  promised 
enjoyments  of  a  future  life.    The  Spaniard,  full  of  the  delusions 


THE  DUTCH  SCHOOL, 


181 


of  his  art-religion  tried  to  coerce  the  Hollander  into  a  similar 
condition.  Motley  shows  us  how  and  why  he  failed.  Com- 
mon as  was  Dutch  art  it  was  more  healthful  for  a  nation  than 
the  Spanish.  If  it  did  not  aspire  to  teach,  neither  did  it  mislead 
the  mind.  There  was  no  disguise  or  latent  meaning  to  it.  He 
that  ran  might  comprehend  it.  The  basis  was  democratic  liberty 
of  choice  as  opposed  to  aristocratic  exclusiveness  and  ecclesias- 
tical rigor  of  selection.  Dutch  politics  and  religion  alike  con- 
demned the  high  art  of  the  past,  while  the  public  scarcely  cared 
for  fine  art  of  any  character.  In  all  free  countries  popular  art 
being  based  on  popular  liberty,  must  necessarily  follow  the  lead 
of  its  guardian.  Under  favorable  conditions  the  common  mind 
finds  its  way  out  of  vulgar  thought  to  higher  aspirations. 
Among  the  aesthetic  changes  produced  by  the  Reformation  there 
is  none  more  apparent  than  that  which  places  the  future  of  all 
genuine  art  more  and  more  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  just  as  it 
does  the  final  decision  of  their  political  destinies.  Popular  elec- 
tion is  the  very  marrow  of  Protestant  art.  The  Dutch  school 
was  a  vigorous,  wholesome  protest  against  those  controlled  by 
Romanism.  Intellectually,  its  choice  was  low  and  unrefined.  It 
ignored  moral  significance,  yet  its  feeling,  although  common,  was 
not  unsound  at  heart.  I  should  say  that  it  lacked  both  aesthetic 
and  intellectual  sensibility.  There  was  no  ambition  for  a  his- 
torical art;  but  small  desire  even  for  the  higher  motives  of 
domestic  life.  Its  speciality  was  vulgar  genre ;  avoiding  all 
thought,  and  priding  itself  on  its  mechanical  skill  and  infinite 
patience.  There  never  was  a  more  purely  mechanical,  common- 
place school  of  painting  combined  with  so  much  minute  finish 
and  fidelity  to  the  ordinary  aspect  of  things,  heedless  of  idealisms 
of  any  sort.  If  it  labored  for  any  special  end  it  was  that  of  oc- 
ular deception.  In  this  respect,  therefore,  its  notion  of  art  was 
like  that  of  a  child  or  savage,  while  its  selection  of  objects  to  be 
represented  was  equally  unsophisticated. 

Humanity  is  overmuch  shown  under  vulgar  aspects,  and 
nature  at  large  in  its  commonplaces,  while  small  things  are 
made  of  equal  importance  to  great.  If  there  be  any  striking 
emphasis,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  predominance  given  to  boorish 
brawls,  feastings,  mean  lives,  or  pride  in  wealth,  civic  rank,  and 
dress  ;  pampered  animal  pets  and  the  usual  accompaniments  of 
fashionable  inanity.  Avarice,  too,  was  most  truthfully  depicted, 
and  drunkenness,  but  lust  and  nudity  not  so  conspicuous  as  in 
the  French  school.    They  showed  their  love  of  the  sea  as  of 


182 


REMBRANDT  AND  RUBENS. 


their  monotonous  landscape  and  houses  of  picturesque  homeli- 
ness, because  of  their  associations  with  their  independence  and 
comfort.  Fine  ladies  and  fine  cattle  were  painted  from  the 
same  point  of  view  ;  fine  clothes  and  a  fine  skin  set  off  by 
luxurious  surroundings,  or  a  golden  tinted  sky,  both  beast  and 
woman  chewing  the  cud  of  animal  repose.    Who  but  a  Paul 

Potter  could  have  painted  "  La  Vache  que  p  "  of  the 

Hague,  an  offensive  realism  highly  appreciated  by  his  country- 
men but  alike  disgusting  either  as  art  or  nature.  But  Dutch 
art  is  too  well  liked  and  known  for  me  to  dwell  longer  on  it. 
Those  whose  aesthetics  are  in  sympathy  with  its  mental  medioc- 
rity will  not  desert  it  for  anything  I  may  say.  Nor  would  I 
have  them  until  they  are  prepared  to  appreciate  a  higher  stand- 
ard. That  of  Holland  is  a  hearty  stimulus  to  the  animal, 
material,  and  trading  instincts  of  a  people  ;  not  altogether  in  a 
debasing  sense,  but  as  exhibiting  their  fruits  at  their  accepted 
social  value  and  national  consideration.  It  gives,  too,  honest 
work  for  hard-earned  dollars.  But  as  an  agent  of  intellectual 
progress  it  is  of  doubtful  worth.  The  tendency  is  rather  to 
materialize  the  understanding  and  sensualize  the  taste,  without 
yielding  any  sustenance  to  the  imagination. 
Rembrandt.  Evcry  pcoplc,  howcvcr,  has  its  native  genius  that 
Rubens.  caps  its  fame  in  the  direction  of  its  national  proclivi- 
ties, or  carries  them  far  onward  into  hitherto  unexplored  regions 
of  imagination  and  methods  of  execution.  Rembrandt  has  done 
for  Holland  what  Turner  has  for  England,  and  Dore  is  now 
doing  for  France  :  the  artistic  strength  and  weakness  of  each 
race  attaining  its  generic  climax  in  each  of  these  men.  Rem- 
brandt's mastery  of  his  vehicles  is  that  of  a  giant.  He  creates 
effects  as  the  Mosaic  record  says  day  and  night  were  made. 
But  he  cannot  separate  himself  nor  his  country  from  his  work. 
His  religious  pieces  are  Dutch  translations  or  travesties  of  the 
original  scenes ;  not  to  illustrate  the  story,  but  to  demonstrate 
Rembrandt's  wonderful  control  of  light,  shadow,  and  color  in 
evoking  form,  a  powerful  creating  faculty  and  strong  hand  in 
harmonious  combination,  intensely  coloring  his  work  with  his  own 
individuality.  Whether  looking  at  etching,  portrait,  landscape,  or 
figure  composition  by  him,  the  first  and  last  consciousness  is,  — 
Rembrandt. 

In  a  minor  degree  this  is  true  of  the  Flemish  Rubens.  What 
is  now  Belgium,  being  then  a  rigid  Roman  Catholic  country,  its 
art  was  subordinated  to  the  usual  papal  influences.    In  its  first 


REMBRANDT  AND  RUBENS. 


183 


stage  it  is  allied  to  early  German  art  in  intellectual  character 
and  design,  and  to  the  Venetian  in  richness  of  coloring.  But  it 
is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  the  minor  schools,  unless,  as  in  the 
case  of  Holland,  they  present  new  distinctive  features.  I  allude 
to  Rubens  on  account  of  his  omnivorous  characteristics.  Vulgar, 
profane,  aristocratic,  and  sacred  themes,  either  in  a  realistic, 
allegorical,  or  idealistic  sense,  he  treated  with  like  amorous  ardor, 
provoking  an  aesthetic  appetite  that  increased  as  it  fed.  His 
flexibility,  fertility,  and  versatility  astonish,  while  his  bacchanal 
tints,  brimming  with  animal  life,  are  poured  on  to  his  canvas  as 
if  from  a  conjurer's  inexhaustible  bottle,  and  run  of  themselves 
into  the  forms  he  wills.  Contrasted  with  this  torrent-like  capac- 
ity, Rembrandt's  dark  force  is  law  itself.  But  there  are  analo- 
gies of  manner  and  taste  between  them.  Both  spring  effects 
and  style  on  the  spectator,  overriding  their  subjects.  Rem- 
brandt's "  Guard-house "  is  an  aesthetic  miracle.  One  forgets 
his  curiosity  as  to  its  meaning,  in  its  super-excellence  as  art. 
While  looking  at  a  brilliant  spectacle  in  the  street  you  would 
as  soon  be  inquisitive  about  the  life  of  each  person  in  the  crowd, 
as  to  ask  why  that  stream  of  humanity  with  flashing  arms  is 
emptying  itself  out  of  that  impenetrable  shadow,  into  the  fitful 
glare  beyond.  The  scene  recalls  the  sluggish,  eddying,  and  jerk- 
ing flow  of  liquid  lava,  seen  by  night  as  it  breaks  away  from 
its  black  bed,  pushing  itself  forward  uncertain  where,  but 
murkily  joyous  to  burst  its  bonds  and  spirt  its  ominous  splen- 
dor against  the  clear  sky  above.  Rubens  does  not  come  up  to 
this,  but  his  pictures  nevertheless  are  equally  an  emphatical  out- 
pouring of  himself.  We  must  look  at  these  two  men  through 
glasses  of  their  own  coloring.  Each  uses  coarse  types,  exag- 
gerates the  physical  and  material,  does  with  satire  or  sly  delight 
unsesthetic  or  even  dirty  things,  roots  in  human  nature  as  the 
hog  does  in  the  ground,  perchance  bringing  to  light  a  precious 
stone,  but  sure  to  lay  bare  many  things  a  fastidious  taste  deems 
best  hid,  employs  heavily  loaded  palettes,  and  sweeps  broadly 
and  daringly  with  his  brush,  infusing  color  with  intense  life  and 
vehement  movement.  Rembrandt  bids  darkness  speak  for  him  ; 
is  conventionally  decorous  in  costume,  loads  an  angel  down  with 
drapery  so  that  he  flies  only  by  the  sheer  projection  given  by  his 
brush.  Rubens  commands  the  magic  of  light ;  throws  off  cloth- 
ing, delights  in  naked  skin,  big  limbs,  colossal  charms,  and  vinous 
tinted  flesh  that  often  hints  at  corruption.  The  Dutchman  is 
self-hidden,  peers  from  out  of  dark  places  ;  a  sphinx,  intractable, 


184 


RUBENS'  "RURAL  FETE  J 


isolated,  pimpled-visaged,  greedy,  glum  ;  the  Fleming,  jovial, 
sensuous,  handsome,  magnificent.  His  tastes  and  habits  are 
those  of  a  cultivated  gentleman.  Prodigally  luxurious,  he  alarms 
a  king  of  Spain  to  whom  he  goes  as  an  ambassador,  lest  his 
example  should  be  considered  a  reproach  to  royal  prudence ;  rec- 
ognizes his  masters,  and  makes  a  gallery  of  their  works ;  repro- 
duces them  by  his  own  hands  very  much  as  Bacchus  might  play 
Apollo,  or  Venus  the  Madonna  ;  a  zealous  Catholic  with  liberal 
instincts,  and  despising  asceticism. 

I  fancy  he  saw  through  royal  shams,  for  in  filling  to  order 
those  acres  of  canvas  in  the  Louvre,  whose  scrubbed  brightness 
gives  a  false  idea  of  his  real  melody  of  tints,  he  makes  the  alle- 
gorized Bourbons  seem  like  the  great  geese  they  were,  in  play- 
ing at  gods  with  the  instincts  of  clowns  ;  conjuring  up  pompous 
artifices  and  meretricious  nonsense  that  savor  more  of  the  mad- 
house imagination  than  of  rational  beings.  But  they  paid  well, 
and  were  excellent  practice  for  his  filibustering  brush.  To  see 
the  genuine  Rubens,  stript  of  aesthetic  disguise  and  courtly 
grimace,  look  at  his  "Rural  Fete"  in  the  same  gallery.  Here  is 
a  hearty  painting  of  boors  and  booresses  engaged  in  a  drunken 
lewd  revel ;  a  characteristic  scene  of  his  country,  which  he 
must  often  have  gazed  at  with  infinite  amusement.  How  they 
hug,  strain,  lift,  whirl,  embrace,  rollic,  and  swell !  See  that 
rising  tide  of  amorous  passion  and  jealousy ;  hearken  to  the  en- 
couraging jeers  of  the  lookers  on  :  a  variety  of  action  and  feel- 
ing put  into  a  harmonious  unity  of  debauchery  and  rural  pleas- 
uring, in  strict  keeping  with  one  of  those  delicious,  satyr-like 
landscapes,  redolent  of  sensuous  health  and  enjoyment,  which 
Rubens  knew  so  well  how  to  paint !  And  this  true  to  nature, 
equally  devoid  of  grotesque  or  obscene  exaggeration  of  the  Dor^ 
kind,  and  of  the  silly  seutimentalism  of  the  Boucher  sort  on  the 
other.  Rubens  was  too  sincere  an  artist  to  mix  up  romanti- 
cism or  idealism  with  smut.  He  bade  nature  speak  without 
maskery.  One  little  picture  of  this  kind  is  of  tenfold  more  con- 
sequence than  all  those  foolish  allegories  that  stare  at  the  visitor 
up  and  down  the  long  gallery. 
^  A  volume  apart  would  be  needed  even  to  skim  the 

Germany.  n  ^  • 

art  of  Germany,  if  it  were  to  be  treated  lor  its  own 
sake.  But  as  I  confine  myself  simply  to  pointing  out  the  modi- 
fication in  its  character  caused  by  the  Reformation,  I  shall  refer 
only  to  its  leading  traits,  without  venturing  upon  the  prolific  sub- 
ject of  its  eminent  schools.     German  art  has  an  important  rela- 


TEE  ART  OF  GERMANY. 


185 


tion  to  modern  civilization  as  the  product  of  a  highly  intellectual 
race,  in  whose  domain  began  that  religious  contest,  still  going  on, 
which  divided  Germany  into  two  ritualistic  camps,  affording  a 
comparison,  side  by  side,  of  the  practical  results  of  the  antago- 
nistic principles  of  Protestantism  and  Papacy  in  human  progress. 
"We  have  only  to  note  the  direction  taken  by  political  power, 
material  well-being,  and  general  mental  growth  to  see  at  once 
which  system  in  an  open  field  of  action  in  the  long  run  obtains 
the  supremacy,  and  drags  the  other  after  it,  vainly  struggling  to 
free  itself  from  the  Laokoon  coil  of  popular  education. 

Before  Luther's  time  the  art  of  Germany  was  more  devoutly 
Roman  Catiiolic  than  that  of  Italy,  for  it  had  been  less  subjected 
to  seductive  classical  influences.  Allowing  for  local  differences 
as  to  popular  saints  and  traditions,  and  the  weird  northern  ele- 
ment of  denionism  born  of  pagan  ancestry,  the  best  feeling  of 
both  countries  ran  in  the  same  theological  chaimel,  was  based  on 
a  community  of  motives  and  aims,  and  vented  in  a  sacred  art 
that  forestalled  literature  and  sermons,  with  similar  results  on 
the  people,  as  their  chief  means  of  intellectual  discipline.  Per- 
haps the  influence  of  German  religious  art  was  the  more  forcible 
from  the  fact  that  it  was  more  explicitly  a  national  development 
of  Christianity  unbiassed  by  any  previous  types  of  an  aBsthetic 
ideal.  Such  idealism  as  it  created  was  subordinated  to  its 
sacred  motives.  How  original  and  suggestive  in  a  spiritual 
sense  Teutonic  faith  became  in  the  prime  of  its  zeal,  as  it  was 
converted  into  architecture,  we  still  have  rich  evidence  in  the 
Gothic  cathedrals  of  the  "  Fatherland."  A  similar  sentiment  and 
treatment  obtained  in  their  easel  pictures  and  movable  sculpture. 
Their  prevailing  character  was  an  earnest  simplicity,  quaintness 
it  might  be  termed,  pushing  bluntly  aside  all  classic  idealism 
of  form  to  make  more  emphatic  the  absolute  thought  and  gov- 
erning sentiment.  These  were  quite  abstract,  often  of  a  mystical 
or  metaphysical  intent,  showing  that  the  ruling  theology  iiad 
rooted  itself  even  deeper  in  the  artistic  mind  than  those  histo- 
ries and  biographies,  which  occupied  so  conspicuous  a  place  in 
Italian  art.  German  religious  art  generally  makes  the  funda- 
mental idea  the  important  element,  while  in  the  Italian  the  ar- 
tistic inclination  went  more  towards  pictorial  composition.  This 
was  subordinated  to  aesthetic  taste  in  a  higher  degree,  its  design 
was  better,  forms  simpler,  details  purer,  meaning  clearer,  to  the 
common  mind,  and  as  a  whole  more  beautiful  to  the  cultivated. 
German  artists  made  less  account  of  the  sensuous,  nude,  or 


186 


ALBERT  DURER. 


sensual,  yet  gave  to  details  a  materialistic  importance  at  variance 
with  the  chief  motive  and  otherwise  abstract  bias  of  their  works. 
Even  in  the  finest  periods  of  the  religious  schools  of  Flanders 
and  Germany  we  see  cropping  out  those  likings  for  the  substan- 
tial things  of  this  life,  the  landscape  teeming  with  good  fruits 
and  rich  harvests,  in-door  luxury,  fine  apparel,  and  precious  orna- 
ments, which  subsequently  ran  riot  in  the  Dutch.  Their  style 
was  ornate,  minute,  and  severe.  Design  was  heavy,  sharp,  and 
angular,  without  grace ;  quite  the  reverse  of  Greek  practice  of 
refined  gradation  of  curves  ;  so  that  we  perceive  the  German 
figures  by  their  firm  incisive  outlines  rather  than  by  the  more 
advanced  system  of  insensible  modelling  of  the  entire  form,  each 
part  in  exquisite  harmony  with  the  whole,  with  no  definable  sep- 
arations of  brush  or  chisel  stroke,  of  which  perhaps  the  most  life- 
like example  in  color  is  Titian's  "  Venus  "  of  the  Tribune  at 
Florence,  and  one  of  the  best  in  rounded  form  is  the  Medicean 
"Venus"  underneath  it.  Take  the  contrary  method,  sink  the 
expression  of  vitality  of  surface-aspect  into  a  realistic  individual- 
ism of  features,  add  extra  angularity  of  dividing  lines,  drapery  too 
cumbersome  for  actual  wear,  cover  it  with  profuse  ornament, 
multiply  patiently  elaborated  details,  disregard  symmetry,  pro- 
portion, and  unity  in  large  measure  equally  with  the  exigencies 
of  the  actual  spectacle,  but  keep  the  masses  well  balanced,  in- 
terpret the  conception  according  to  the  local  standard  of  ideas 
and  things,  the  composition  the  while  making  a  richly  colored  and 
picturesque  whole,  and  the  reader  gets  a  fair  idea  of  the  German 
method  of  religious  art  before  the  Reformation. 
...    „  Albert  Durer  stands,  in  relation  to  it,  as  Rembrandt 

Albert  Durer.  '  .  ' 

to  Dutch  and  Raphael  to  Italian  art,  but  on  a  higher 
plane  of  devout  feeling  and  intellectual  apprehension.  His  im- 
agination is  more  interpenetrative  and  mystical,  evoking  new 
forms  to  fit  the  essences  of  ideas  or  reproducing  past  scenes  in 
the  light  of  his  own  home-fed  vision.  It  is  a  profound  genius  of 
touching  simplicity  and  sincerity,  somewhat  sad  in  ratiocination 
and  sentiment,  eschewing  ideal  beauty,  loving  the  exact  fact  or 
semblance  of  it,  yet  ever  aspiring  to  the  abstract  and  spiritual. 
If  I  love  Raphael  for  his  sensuous  grace  and  joy,  I  am  equally 
drawn  to  Durer  by  his  omission  of  them.  I  feel  that  they 
would  weaken  the  ineffable  tenderness  of  truth  that  his  intro- 
spective heart  pours  out  to  the  world  with  such  guileless  sensi- 
bility ;  a  trait  in  genius  rarer  than  the  finest  aesthetic  sentiment, 
matched  in  rarity  only  by  the  creative  majesty  of  Michael  Au- 


BOOKS  AND  ART, 


187 


gelo's  isolated  mind.  Albert  Diirer  was  a  suitable  climax  to 
the  intensest  qualities  of  the  religious  art  of  his  country,  just  as 
it  beojan  to  decline  before  the  influx  of  printing.  Hans  Holbein 
the  elder  is  a  German  Leonardo,  almost  matchless  in  his  finest 
portraiture  in  solidity  of  style  and  intense  realism  of  character. 

The  immediate  benefit  of  Protestantism  was  that  it  relieved 
the  human  mind  from  the  worst  of  the  one-sided  ecclesiastical 
pressure,  and  permitted  it  also  to  think  in  other  directions. 
Theologies  have  ever  had  a  distrust  of  natural  science  for  the 
reason  that  they  declare  their  base  to  be  an  immutable  one,  re- 
vealed of  God,  while  that  of  science  moves  on  with  every  fresh 
discovery.  Art  favored  their  assumptions,  inasmuch  as  it  kept 
before  the  people  in  attractive  shapes  those  dogmas  on  which 
were  founded  the  claim  of  divine  authority.  The  "  thus  saith 
the  Lord  "  of  art  is  a  potent  appeal  to  all  persons,  sustained  as 
it  is  by  prerogatives  whose  origin  is  lost  in  the  night  of  ages, 
and,  to  minds  undisciplined  by  reason,  irresistible.  Enunciated 
with  the  emotional  blandishments  and  force  of  imagination  of 
high  art,  it  has  a  readier  capacity  either  to  fortify  truth  or  to 
difi'use  error  than  have  books. 

These  are  slow  of  tongue,  speaking  to  one  mind  ^^"^g^^^^ools 
at  a  time,  are  fastidious  as  to  opportunity  and  in-  and  an. 
troduction,  while  painting  and  sculpture  possess  the  glib  fac- 
ulty of  extemporaneous  speaking  to  crowds  of  people,  in  all 
moods  and  seasons,  predisposed  by  the  deceptive  logic  of  their 
physical  organs  to  believe  what  they  see.  The  image  of  the 
idea  lodges  itself  instantaneously  in  the  unwary  soul  without 
being  subjected  to  the  challenge  of  logic.  Indeed,  next  to  mu- 
sic, the  plastic  and  pictorial  forms  of  art  most  speedily  fascinate 
the  senses.  They  further  beguile  the  mind  into  an  aesthetic  lan- 
guor which  impairs  the  hardier  processes  of  critical  thought. 
Used  with  evil  intent,  or  even  stupidly,  art  has  always  done  in- 
calculable harm,  by  seducing  the  public  into  habits  of  supersti- 
tion or  sensuality,  fostering  the  light  vices  of  human  nature 
to  the  undermining  of  its  solid  virtues.  Wherever  discussion 
is  most  restrained,  there  art  has  most  license,  because  it  is  easily 
kept  moving  in  those  directions  which  are  not  offensive  to  gov- 
ernments founded  on  breech-loaders.  Encouragement  of  art 
by  despotism  has  a  captivating  ring  to  the  popular  ear,  but  it  is 
a  snare  and  delusion  to  true  civilization.  Tyrants  first  cun- 
ningly emasculate  it  of  nobility  of  spirit,  and  then  throw  it  as  a 
sop  to  a  defrauded  people,  or  else  train  it  to  systematic  baseness 


188 


LUTHER S  REFORMATION. 


to  subserve  sinister  policies  or  conceal  selfish  passions  by  plausi- 
ble aesthetic  masquerading.  Art  is  a  convenient  domino  to  cover 
up  the  legalized  robbery  of  a  nation's  treasure  as  v^^ell  as  a  temp- 
tation to  infinite  squandering.  Louis  XIV.  spent  one  thou- 
sand million  francs  of  Frenchmen's  money  on  an  ugly  show- 
house  for  himself,  and  then  burned  the  accounts  to  hide  the  ex- 
tent of  the  theft. 

Not  to  be  too  severe  on  men  of  his  pattern,  I  do  not  doubt 
that  the  wrong  they  inflict  on  men  and  art,  after  all,  is  in  keep- 
ing with  their  honest  notions  about  both. 

In  either  case  they  are  too  demented  by  absolute  power  to  be 
capable  of  common  sense,  much  less  of  a  right  view  of  their 
artificial  relations  to  their  own  species.  But  this  aggravates 
their  mischief,  and  ought  long  ago  to  have  weaned  men  from  any 
dependence  on  one-man  power,  whether  by  right  of  royal  cradle 
or  deluded  suffrage.  The  Lutheran  Reformation  was  a  great 
step  towards  putting  Christianity  into  its  normal  position  as  re- 
gards human  progress.  Its  tendency  was  not  only  to  dissever 
it  from  the  exclusive  service  of  reigning  castes  and  creeds,  but 
to  discriminate  between  it  as  an  aesthetic  principle  merely,  and 
art  for  the  elevation  of  humanity.  Art  for  art  is  beautiful, 
as  Victor  Hugo  says,  but  art  for  mankind  is  both  beautiful  and 
sublime.  Its  mission  is  not  complete  unless  it  keeps  the  moral 
ideal  as  purely  in  its  heart  as  the  aesthetic  in  its  eye. 

Protestantism  has  not  yet  reached  this  stage.  Its  career  is 
too  recent  and  undeveloped  to  have  produced  in  art  other  changes 
than  an  abandonment  of  old  motives  and  styles,  and  a  diversion 
of  its  current  to  other  channels,  without  as  yet  any  special  excel- 
lence or  exhaustion  of  its  democratic  capacities  of  variety  of 
choice  and  adaptation  to  the  expanding  tastes  of  the  multitude. 
The  new  art  is  feeling  its  way  through  good  and  bad  experiment 
to  a  more  satisfactory  condition,  borne  hither  and  thither  in  the 
disquiet  of  peoples,  now  ignored,  now  petted  by  fashion,  uncer- 
tain of  movement  and  inspiration,  but  steadily  rising  on  the  tide 
of  naturalistic  truth  and  working  its  way  into  popular  favor. 
In  Germany,  modern  art  has  been  kept  alive  by  its  mixed  re- 
ligious, liberal,  and  reactionary  ideas,  stilted  patronage,  like 
that  of  the  kings  of  Bavaria,  and  scholastic  culture,  assuming  a 
universality  of  features  that  offers  something  to  the  liking  of 
every  one,  without  being  productive  of  much  popular  edification 
or  establishing  a  distinctive  modern  school  of  a  European  repu- 
tation.   Germany  has  not  yet  reached  the  height  of  her  old  re- 


CORNELIUS,  OVERBECK,  AND  KAULBACH.  189 


nown.  There  is  a  bias  to  academic  systems  and  realistic  forms 
based  on  laborious  study ;  as  for  instance  the  Dusseldorf  school, 
which  is  pedantic,  formal,  external,  unimaginative,  and  unaes- 
thetic  in  the  ideal  sense ;  clever  in  execution,  without  any  pure 
instinct  of  color  ;  prone  to  common  things,  and  much  given  to 
pictorial  rant  when  it  grows  ambitious  of  dramatic  compositions. 
It  is  a  plodding  school  of  mediocrities  in  its  best  men,  while  the 
works  of  the  common  rank  and  file  serve  as  the  primers  and 
grammars  of  art-training  of  the  public  eye.  There  is  also  a 
conservative  religious  school  illustrated  by  Overbeck  and  an 
eclectic  one  by  Cornelius  and  Kaulbach,  who  thought  to  recast 
the  art  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  old  moulds,  and  with  about 
as  much  permanent  success  as  a  new  order  of  Stylites  might 
expect.  These  artists  are  ambitious,  learned,  sincere,  and  skil- 
ful. But  the  common  people  wonder,  shake  their  heads,  and 
straightway  forgetting  the  big  paintings,  compounded  of  defunct 
foreign  systems  and  feelings,  pass  on  to  admire  the  easel  represen- 
tations of  things  familiar  and  domestic.  Modern  democratic  taste, 
right  or  wrong,  will  not  tolerate  asceticism,  allegory,  religious  or 
classical,  idealism,  mysticism,  romanticism,  or  other  passion  of 
the  past,  while  it  can  command  a  plentiful  supply  of  its  own 
loved  naturalism.  Its  idols  must  talk  its  own  tongue,  and  have 
a  fellow-feeling.  Democracy  has  hit  the  right  path  for  a  more 
wholesome  art  of  its  own  than  aristocracy  ever  worked  out  for 
itself.  Believe,  and  then  be  baptized.  The  habit  of  church  or 
state  is  to  baptize  first,  leaving  the  neophyte  to  believe  if  he 
can,  disbelieve  if  he  dare. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


ENGLISH  ART. 


i/^T^  OWHERE  are  the  generic  distinctions  of  Protestant 
i  and  Catholic  art  more  obvious  than  in  England 
^  ^  and  Spain.  Holland  and  Spain  were  contemporaries 
3  in  the  best  periods  of  their  schools,  both  vehemently 
materialistic  in  feeling,  though  differing  widely  in 
other  respects  ;  Dutchmen  painting  with  beaver-like  instincts, 
while  Spaniards  imparted  to  their  brushes  somewhat  of  their 
own  sombre  grandiloquence  of  speech  and  flow  of  passion.  The 
saving's  bank  principle  of  accumulation  by  a  series  of  little  in- 
Generaiig-  dustrics  and  assiduous  toil,  always  excepting  Rem- 
^n^iiT/i°art  brandt's  grand  manner,  chiefly  obtains  in  the  Dutch 
in  Europe.  manner.  In  the  Spanish  there  is  the  reverse  pro- 
cess of  producing  imposing  general  or  specific  effects  by  a 
large  touch  and  direct  stroke  looking  steadily  at  a  final  success, 
disdainful  of  wayside  finish  and  distracting  side-play  of  detail. 
The  English  school,  without  arriving  at  the  summit  of  technical 
excellence  of  either  of  the  others,  partakes  in  its  extremes  some- 
what of  both,  while  its  sentiment  is  equally  national.  Further, 
there  is  an  ignorance  and  indifference  in  regard  to  it  in  the  gen- 
eral European  mind  about  as  complete  as  that  of  the  art  of 
Japan,  while  it  was  excluded  from  the  knowledge  of  the  rest  of 
the  world  by  the  timid  policy  of  its  government.  Nothing  like 
this  has  operated  to  seclude  English  art.  On  the  contrary, 
England  is  an  asylum  of  nations.  There  are  no  barriers  to 
ingress  or  egress  of  people  or  art.  Anglo-Saxons  emigrate  and 
travel  more  than  other  races.  By  these  means  they  spread 
their  notions  and  habits  faster  and  further  than  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. Actually  they  have  done  the  most  to  raise  the  standard 
of  the  moral  and  physical  well-being,  promote  material  comfort, 
and  enlarge  the  horizon  of  political  liberty,  in  fine,  to  diffuse 
civilization  by  individual  example,  of  any  people.  Americans 
fail  to  appreciate  what  Europe  was  before  this  influence  was 
brought  to  bear  on  it,  unless  they  step  out  of  the  common  track 


THE  BRITISH  REFORMER, 


191 


of  tourists.  A  few  miles  of  side-travel  will  carry  them  back 
almost  to  the  social  conditions  of  the  dark  ages,  divested  of  their 
picturesquesness.  To  realize  the  vast  scale  of  English  civiliza- 
tion, we  must  take  in  at  one  view  America  and  Australia,  watch 
the  intellectual  and  religious  light  that  is  penetrating  Asia  from 
this  source,  and  observe  how  the  presence  of  the  English  race 
is  felt  wherever  it  settles,  in  ameliorating  local  discomforts,  in- 
troducing sanitary  innovations,  and  improving  the  common  ideas 
of  truth,  chastity,  cleanliless,  humanity  to  animals,  and  public  de- 
corum. Those  who  regard  only  individual  exceptions  will  deride 
this  statement.  But  I  base  it  on  twenty  years'  experience  in 
different  countries.  The  habits  of  personal  propriety  and  self- 
reliance  which  the  educated  Englishman  takes  with  him  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe  are  a  source  of  improvement  to  all 
peoples.  Setting  aside  those  large  ideas  and  enterprises  which 
grow  well  only  in  free  countries,  I  thank  him  for  showing  the  good 
of  pure  water,  soap,  ventilation,  warmth,  fixed  prices,  full  meas- 
ure, punctuality,  bathing,  open-air  exercise  and  games,  doors 
that  will  close,  chimneys  that  will  draw,  windows  that  will  open 
and  shut,  sewerage  and  drainage  that  will  do  their  duty,  and  in 
fine  for  his  reforming  zeal  in  little  things.  I  sympathize  in  his 
abhorrence  of  the  stinks,  filth,  rotten  beggary,  and  hypocrit- 
ical knavery  too  common  on  the  Continent;  of  the  prevalent 
desire  of  being  carried  through  life,  Siubad  fashion,  on  some  one 
else's  back,  so  that  the  legs  of  many  persons  come  to  lose  their 
natural  office  of  support ;  on  his  contempt  for  that  common 
style  of  tailor-made  men  who  push  women  into  the  gutter  in  the 
street,  stare  them  into  scornful  immobility  of  feature  for  self- 
protection,  or  plot  how  they  may  entrap  some  weak  female  into 
supporting  them  in  affluent  idleness  for  the  sake  of  a  comely 
person  or  forlorn  title.  The  amount  of  starvatign  of  body  at 
home  to  keep  up  a  show  out  of  doors  by  the  Southern  races, 
must  be  witnessed  to  be  comprehended  by  comfort-exacting 
Anglo-Saxons. 

Impatient  of  shams  and  equally  beguiled  by  material  interests, 
the  American  is  England's  own  child,  intensified  by  larger  free- 
dom, greater  self-assertion,  and  emancipation  from  "vested" 
wrong.  Neither  Americans  nor  English  are  liked  in  Europe, 
except  for  their  money  and  the  reliance  on  their  promises  to 
pay.  Both  are  too  restless  under  imposition  and  arbitrary 
power,  too  little  possessed  of  the  spirit  of  '■^ patienza"  to  be  pop- 
ular.   Their  frankness  of  damning  grates  on  the  ears  of  those 


192 


WHAT  WE  OWE  TO  ENGLISHMEN. 


who  unconsciously  offend  them  from  ignorance  of  their  ideas 
and  habits.  The  American  being  the  last  corner,  more  of  a 
spendthrift,  and  less  mixed  up  in  the  politics  of  Europe,  though 
he  begins  to  loom  portentously,  is  the  less  disliked.  Moreover, 
he  is  more  flexible,  impressible,  and  cosmopolitan  in  tempera- 
ment. There  is  in  him  the  possibility  of  relationship  to  all  the 
rest  of  the  world,  even  the  negro.  Distance  also  lends  some 
enchantment  to  the  foreign  view  of  his  person.  European 
idealists  see  in  America  the  great  primary  school  of  democratic 
progress.  An  American,  therefore,  wherever  he  is,  should  live 
in  the  light  of  his  own  institutions,  talk  from  his  throat  instead 
of  his  nose,  not  be  unmindful  of  the  grammar  of  his  mother- 
tongue,  train  his  manners  in  accordance  with  the  requirements 
of  polite  society,  —  which  is  a  fine  art  in  itself, —  and  not  strive 
for  those  aristocratic  appearances  which,  like  the  donkey  in  the 
lion's  skin,  only  advertise  his  imposture.  Rather  let  him  imitate 
the  Englishman,  who  carries  his  island  on  his  back,  an  inconven- 
ient burden  at  times,  but  in  the  end  beneficial.  An  American, 
keeping  faith  with  his  proper  principles,  will  finally  be  more 
respected  as  an  individual,  and  more  useful  as  an  example  of 
republican  civilization,  than  if  he  fades  into  an  indefatigable 
snob,  clamoring  for  the  privileges  of  that  birthright  he  has  bar- 
tered away  for  a  mess  of  aristocratic  porridge.  A  genuine 
American  can  teach  Europe  nmch  that  concerns  popular  educa- 
tion and  individual  development  that  an  Englishman  has  not  yet 
grown  up  to.  Still,  I  repeat,  we  do  owe  him  thanks  for  the 
good  service  already  done.  This,  too,  despite  frequent  insular 
haughtiness,  indifference,  an  alpine  egotism,  want  of  tact,  amen- 
ity, and  recognition  of  rights  and  ideas  not  registered  in  his 
conventional  text-books  or  systems,  and  the  selfish  sophistry  and 
offensive  arrogance  with  which  he  prematurely  sneered  at  the 
downfall  of  democracy  and  the  destruction  of  the  great  Republic. 
My  great  uncle,  I  hated  you  then !  I  kept  warm  in  my  heart 
your  long  list  of  national  crimes,  —  not  blunders,  but  coolly 
adopted  policies  and  opinions,  against  the  defeated  or  those  who 
do  not  fall  into  your  way  of  thinking ;  like  the  blowing  away  of 
Hindoos  from  the  mouths  of  cannons,  less  to  torture  their  bodies 
than  as  a  touch  of  extra  damnation  to  their  souls  ;  that  letter  of 
Ruskin  declining  intercourse  with  Americans,  because  of  the 
wickedness  of  fighting  to  put  down  slavery,  in  the  same  breath 
that  he  was  anathematizing  England  for  not  fighting  in  support 
of  his  gyratory  ethics ;  the  idiotic  conclusion  of  Carlyle  as  to  the 


THE  ENRAGED  LATINS. 


193 


meaning  of  the  North  ;  and  the  snap-judgment  of  British  Lords 
and  Commons  upon  America  in  her  severest  trials. 

Let  the  dead  bury  the  dead.  At  least,  let  us  not  imitate 
evil.  The  world  owes  more  to  England  than  it  has  the  grace 
to  acknowledge.  Its  manners  are  blunt,  reserved,  but  hearty. 
If  other  populations  travelled  as  much  as  Englishmen,  we  should 
see  in  them  even  more  to  vex  or  annoy.  There  would  be  some 
new  lessons  in  stinginess,  deception,  dirtiness,  and  the  vocabulary 
of  profanity  and  obscenity  as  a  fine  art,  practised  by  an  enraged 
vulgar-minded  Latin,  and  sundry  personal  habits  that  little  suit 
English  and  American  notions  of  propriety.  There  would  be 
plenty  of  fault-finding  and  but  scant  reforming  ;  for  the  protest 
of  the  Latin  is  limited  to  his  personal  desires  and  hearers, 
while  the  vigorous  grumble  of  the  Englishman,  and  his  emphatic 
denunciations  at  bad  faith  and  scanty  accommodations,  echoed  by 
a  sympathizing  press,  operates  both  as  a  preventive  and  a  cure. 
The  one  would  rely  on  the  government  to  make  all  smooth  for 
him  ;  the  other  denounces,  and  puts  his  own  hand  to  the  reform. 
An  average  Englishman,  being  either  the  most  pertinacious  con- 
servative as  to  what  relates  to  his  own  class  of  ideas  or  the 
most  earnest  reformer  as  to  those  of  others,  is  certain  to  offend 
in  both  ways. 

Althouffh  English  art  shows  names  that  would 

o  o  insularity  of 

confer  honor  on  any  modern  school,  in  spirit  and  English  art 
execution  it  is  reforming  and  innovatiiig,  besides  being  in- 
sular in  position.  The  Dutch  school  is  less  intellectual,  varied, 
and  inspiriting,  yet  its  works  abound  in  the  galleries  of  Eu- 
rope, everywhere  in  protesting  contrast  to  Roman  Catholic  art, 
while  there  are  to  be  seen  out  of  Great  Britain  no  Eng- 
lish ^^ictures  of  account.  Part  of  this  neglect  is  due  to  the 
scale  of  home  prices,  which  is  far  above  that  of  the  Continent, 
but  it  is  mainly  owing  to  ignorance  and  that  prejudice  against 
English  individualism  which  tones  their  art  as  much  as  their 
manners.  Still  these  circumstances  do  not  explain  why  for- 
eign governments  have  given  no  place  to  English  paintings 
in  their  galleries.  Turner,  who  in  his  sphere,  was  quite  as 
remarkable  as  their  great  painters,  is  almost  as  unknown  in 
their  art  world  as  the  Japanese  Oksai.  Other  distinguished 
names  fare  no  better.  So  much  the  worse  for  Europe.  Eng- 
land herself  cultivates  a  catholic  taste  in  literature  and  art. 
She  collects  from  all  sources  to  aid  her  own  intellectual  de- 
velopment, without  stint  of  money,  and  finally  with  sagacity, 
1.3 


194 


HOT-HOUSE  ART 


thanks  to  the  criticism  her  system  of  aesthetic  training  has 
fostered.  Elsewhere  culture  of  this  character  is  wholly  a  care 
of  government.  Here  it  has  been  only  recently  initiated  on  a 
large  scale,  and  by  private  zeal,  as  it  were,  forced  into  the  offi- 
cial budget.  Whether  it  is  a  better  for  the  government  or  the 
people  to  take  the  initiative  and  direction  in  all  matters  of  educa- 
tion, is  an  open  question.  The  first  system  hastens  develop- 
ment, but  is  apt  to  mislead  or  pervert,  while  the  second,  if  slower, 
is  more  sure  to  be  a  genuine  expression  of  national  taste  and 
needs.  In  art,  as  in  politics,  the  less  a  people  are  governed 
downwards,  the  better.  Hot-house  forcing  of  an  eclectic  art 
after  the  Munich  pattern,  imposed  on  an  indifferent  jDopula- 
tion,  is  certain  to  meet  with  the  fate  of  seed  sown  on  rocky 
ground.  The  mixed  English  system  has  greatly  benefited 
the  nation  by  giving  vent  to  the  aesthetic  convictions  of  those, 
best  qualified  to  stimulate  the  public  mind  in  this  respect,  and 
by  promptly  supplying  those  artistic  helps  which  were  out  of 
the  reach  of  private  enterprise.  In  America  we  must  await 
individual  action  both  as  to  initiation  and  organization.  All 
that  the  legislature  may  do  is  to  legalize  its  work,  and  if 
persuaded  of  its  general  utility,  give  it  incidental  aid.  The 
last  and  most  difficult  task  of  the  American  people  has  in- 
variably been  to  enlighten  their  law-makers.  As  yet  their 
ignorance  of  art  is  hopelessly  profound.  Compared  with  ours, 
the  English  are  supremely  wise  in  their  generation  ;  and  this 
wisdom  is  the  result  of  the  mental  activity  of  a  few  persons, 
who,  having  studied  the  subject  in  its  relation  to  British  civil- 
ization, have  succeeded  in  convincing  Parliament  of  its  practi- 
cal importance. 

The  present  English  school  is  scarcely  a  century  old.  While 
England  was  Roman  Catholic,  her  art,  which  was  more  than 
respectable  in  architecture,  was  imbued  with  the  same  religious 
sentiment  as  that  of  her  neighbors.  Here  we  may  again  ob- 
serve of  how  little  weight  are  race  or  climate  in  artistic  devel- 

o 

opment  compared  with  ideas.  With  one  class  of  convictions 
England  wrought  abundantly  and  well.  As  they  changed,  art, 
too,  changed.  The  book  influence  becoming  very  strong  and 
taking  an  iconoclastic  direction,  for  a  long  period  the  aesthetic 
training  was  set  aside,  or  put  on  a  very  inconsequential  footing. 
This  withdrawal  of  art  from  its  old  position  was  the  less  felt  be- 
cause of  the  brilliant  literature  that  took  its  place.  So  for  was 
the  intellectual  development  of  England  from  being  suspended 


INFLUENCE  OF  FASHION. 


195 


by  the  Protestant  reaction  against  art,  that  it  was  carried  for- 
ward more  rapidly  than  ever,  surpassing  that  of  the  other  peo- 
ples who  were  in  different  degrees  subjected  to  similar  revolu- 
tionary changes.  We  may  miss  in  England  a  distinctive  school 
of  painting  equal  to  that  which  existed  in  Spain,  Holland,  or 
Germany  in  the  first  centuries  subsequent  to  the  Reformation, 
but  its  absence  is  more  than  compensated  by  the  artistic  supe- 
riority and  wholesomeness  of  its  prose  and  poetry.  They  trained 
a  public  to  think  profoundly  as  well  as  to  feel  deeply,  which 
was  more  than  art  could  do  by  itself.  Likewise  they  kept  in 
active  circulation  those  principles  of  political  science  which  sub- 
sequently ripened  into  American  freedom.  Therefore  if  our  an- 
cestors at  this  juncture  produced  no  masterpieces  to  match  those 
of  Rembrandt,  Rubens,  or  Velasquez,  or  school-work  equal  to 
that  of  Claude,  Salvator  Rosa,  and  the  Carracci,  they  were  busy 
in  solving  an  abstract  problem  of  civilization,  which  they  finally 
brought  to  a  practical  solution  of  infinitely  more  benefit  to  men 
than  fine  sculpture  and  painting  by  themselves.  We  may  wish 
we  had  more  treasure  of  this  sort,  but  in  view  of  our  old  Eng- 
lish literature  and  present  political  advance,  we  have  no  reason 
to  covet  tlie  above  names. 

It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that  religious  preju-  influence  of 
dices  and  materialistic  tendencies  caused  an  unneces-  f^^'^^"^- 
sary  amount  of  aesthetic  poverty,  which  did  not  much  abate  until 
the  Royal  Academy  was  founded,  and  the  aristocracy  made  a  lion 
of  Reynolds.  Just  what  is  now  happening  in  America  occurred 
then  in  England.  Fashion  set  up  for  an  amateur.  To  have  a 
taste  always  implies  a  flattering  distinction,  the  more  so  when  the 
crowd  associates  it  in  its  superficial  judgment  with  titles  or  wealth. 
It  is  not  a  generous  patronage  of  art,  but  the  best  to  be  had  in 
the  present  condition  of  Protestant  human  nature.  Money  and 
rank  had  far  more  to  do  in  putting  the  English  school  on  its  legs 
than  intelligent  criticism  or  a  universal  desire  for  pictures. 

I  confine  my  remarks  to  them,  because  English  sculpture, 
with  partial  exception,  is  too  mechanical  and  commonplace  to 
take  a  generic  position.  Flaxman  had  taste  and  genius  in  de- 
sign, but  he  cannot  be  accounted  a  great  sculptor.  Chantrey, 
Marochetti,  and  other  well-known  names  appear  as  shrewd  con- 
tractors of  moderate  executive  skill  and  scant  aesthetic  knowl- 
edge, foisted  into  notoriety  and  wealth  by  an  imbecile  patronage 
created  by  adroit  patron-hunting.  Gibson  was  a  diluted  Greek 
of  the  decline  ;  a  clever  artist,  but  bestowing  on  his  country 


196 


ENGLISH  PAINTING. 


nothing  in  sympathy  with  current  ideas  and  feelings.  He  is 
one  of  those  classical  pedants,  of  whom  Canova  is  the  chief,  who, 
acting  as  plausible  guides  to  the  antique,  mislead  the  public  in 
its  conceptions  of  it.  The  English  mind  either  does  not  take  to 
sculpture,  or  sculpture  does  not  take  to  it.  So  far  from  there 
being  in  this  department  indications  of  an  original  excellence 
corresponding  to  the  progress  of  the  sister-art,  or  to  architect- 
ure as  a  constructive  whole,  each  fresh  name  marks  further 
retrogression.    And  England  owns  the  Elgin  marbles  ! 

English  painting  reflects  the  tastes  and  habits  of  the  popula- 
tion at  large,  drawn  by  the  climate  rather  towards  a  fireside, 
easel  art,  than  to  out-door,  monumental  work.  Those  motives 
are  preferred  which  are  associated  with  ordinary  enjoyments. 
Next,  those  which  illustrate  facts,  scenes,  or  sentiments.  There  is 
little  passion  in  English  art, —  instead,  the  domestic  affections, 
loyalty,  self-esteem,  and  whatever  manifests  the  national  power. 
TJiere  is,  too,  a  hearty  love  of  the  sea,  landscape,  the  substantial 
fruits  of  wealth,  wit,  humor,  exposure  of  social  shams  and  follies, 
respect  for  morality,  mingled  with  adulation  of  rank  and  the  mere 
fighting  class,  whether  of  the  ring  or  war-office.  It  is  a  common 
school  in  many  respects,  and  material  in  its  longings  ;  but  it  never 
descends  to  the  bottom  of  Dutch  motives,  although  its  respect  of 
animal  vigor,  the  turf  and  chase,  and  delight  in  physical  sensa- 
tions, are  frankly  avowed.  If  Englishmen  prize  health  in  man 
and  strength  in  beasts,  it  is  more  for  the  power  they  confer  of 
overcoming  difficulties  than  as  sources  of  sensual  pleasures.  Etty 
is  a  rare  example  of  a  sensuous  artist,  and  he  produced  phantoms, 
not  flesh,  as  impalpable,  unformed,  and  unseductive  as  the  vague 
forms  of  a  dream.  The  school  is  too  clean-minded  for  success 
here.  It  refuses  to  steep  womanhood  in  vice  or  immodesty,  and 
cordially  detests  the  wanton.  Neither  has  it  the  blood  instinct 
which  accompanies  the  sensual  in  the  Gallic  and  Spanish  schools. 
Generally  there  is  the  possibility  of  a  rake  in  a  French  saint  (on 
canvas)  and  of  a  ruffian  in  an  Iberian  angel.  Classical  idealism 
is  no  more  to  its  taste  than  painting  "  dirt "  of  any  sort.  It  has 
no  forced  standard  of  beauty,  scarcely  considers  it  at  all  other 
than  as  the  result  of  a  body  that  digests  well  and  hits  hard.  The 
strong  point  is  natural  truth.  Whatever  is  seen  it  wishes  dis- 
tinctly shown.  The  public  eye  is  the  first  organ  to  criticise, 
next  the  heart,  lastly  the  brain. 

English  art  is  a  good  story-teller,  dotes  on  children  and  pets, 
enjoys  the  picturesque,  manly  sports,  horticulture,  agriculture. 


ENGLISH  COLORING. 


197 


commerce,  business,  the  crowd,  isolation,  vanities  of  fashion, 
follies  of  low  life,  virtues  of  every-day  existence,  the  eccentricities 
of  the  world,  and  is  more  content  with  a  "  home  "  midway  be- 
tween poverty  and  riches  than  to  be  "  decorated  "  and  receive 
prize-medals.  Solid  comfort  is  dearer  to  it  than  "  honorable 
mention."  It  prefers  punctual  bank-checks  to  distinguished 
back-patting  ;  does  not  knuckle  to  patronage,  yet  adores  it. 

Superior  to  the  copyist,  it  asserts  itself  as  an  illustrator  and 
exhibitor ;  original  in  selection,  varied  and  reputable  ;  not  in- 
ventive, but  discursive,  discovering ;  a  wholesome  art  for  the 
whole  people ;  neither  too  abstruse,  ideal,  or  allegorical  for  the 
common  apprehension,  nor  too  gross  for  cultivated  taste ;  not  yet 
aspiring  to  high  historical  and  religious  painting  or  profound 
thought,  except  in  a  few  cases  of  but  partial  success  or  absolute 
failure.  For  a  long  while  its  chief  ambition  was  to  catch  the  smile 
of  fashion.  Now  it  earnestly  seeks  local  truth  and  accurate 
characterization.  Voluntarily  it  yields  precedence  to  literature, 
satisfied  with  borrowing  its  creations,  in  place  of  creating 
thought-models  for  itself.  The  Bible  as  a  source  of  inspiration 
pushes  aside  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Dante,  who,  however,  get  com- 
pensation elsewhere.  Scriptural  subjects  are  sure  of  popular 
sympathy,  while  classical  motives  are  certain  to  catch  the  cold 
shoulder.  Minor  things,  to  say  the  least,  have  as  good  a  chance 
as  great ;  I  think  better.  Their  soul  is  recognized,  and  thereby 
they  are  exalted,  as  much  as  Dutch  art  tends  to  belittle  them  by 
the  variety  of  labor  heaped  on  their  crust.  English  art  has  its 
own  cant,  but  does  not  often  rush  into  absurd  sensation,  being 
kept  clear  by  its  shrewd  detection  of  the  ridiculous.  The  weak- 
ness goes  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  impassive  decorum  and 
rigid  restraint.  It  overlooks  the  quiet  saints  of  Protestant  prog- 
ress in  favor  of  those  who  make  the  most  uproar ;  but  as  a 
whole,  English  painting,  planting  itself  firmly  on  the  earth, 
specially  devotes  itself  to  Humanity. 

Technically  our  satisfaction  is  less  complete.  It  has  British  coIop. 
no  universal,  acute  feeling  for  color  or  large  sense  of 
harmony,  being  in  this  behind  other  schools.  There  is  overmuch 
rawness,  spottiness,  flimsiness,  and  dryness  of  touch.  The  color- 
faculty  seems  to  be  as  inoperative  in  the  nation  at  large  as  that 
of  music.  This  is  noticeable  in  the  prevailing  inharmony,  want 
of  subtle  gradation  of  tints,  of  skill  in  modelling,  or  the  expres- 
sion of  character  by  it  equally  as  by  form,  as  with  the  Venetians 
and  Spaniards,  and  the  absence  of  that  aesthetic  tone  which  com- 


198 


WATER-COLOR  PAINTING. 


pletes  the  unity  of  perfect  painting.  Color  becomes  blunt  and 
jerked  ;  like  British  speech,  throaty,  whereby  words  are  dwarfed 
into  imperfect  sounds,  and  fluency  and  harmony  choked.  A 
single-eyed  regard  for  the  main  idea  is  at  the  bottom  of  much  of 
this  inept  practice  of  parts.  But  more  arises  from  vicious 
methods  and  paucity  of  home-means  of  training  the  senses  to  a 
correct  appreciation  of  colors.  Further  there  is  much  careless 
execution,  founded  on  the  common  make-shifts  of  ocular  decep- 
tion, or  relying  on  the  popular  obtuseness  not  to  be  detected. 
Preraphaelitism,  so  called,  was  an  earnest  protest  against 
the  superficiality  of  the  older  men,  and  wrought  a  wholesome 
change  in  the  standard  of  painting.  It  operated  as  a  regenerat- 
ing force,  insisting  on  a  more  loyal  treatment  of  nature  and  more 
honesty  towards  the  spectator.  Details  and  accessories  were 
given  their  legitimate  value  in  composition  in  the  scale  of  fact. 
Like  all  reformers,  however,  the  Preraphaelites  were  sometimes 
seduced  by  excessive  zeal  to  push  their  practice  to  extreme  limits, 
putting  every  object,  without  regard  to  the  point  of  view  or  its 
relative  importance,  on  the  same  level  of  elaborate  finish  and 
equality  of  representation,  so  that  the  spirit  of  the  whole  was  in 
danger  of  being  frittered  away  in  minute  parts.  If  the  old  men 
did  too  little,  the  new  did  too  much,  like  Denner  in  portraiture, 
who  makes  the  pores  and  texture  of  the  skin  more  evident  than 
the  likeness.  However  it  put  the  shirkers  of  labor  out  of  fash- 
ion, and  made  conscientious  work,  if  not  wholly  popular,  at  least 
respected,  besides  giving  a  severe  blow  to  the  stilted  prestige  of 
the  average  academicians. 

With  it  grew  up  that  beautiful  branch  of  art,  at  first  peculiar 
to  the  English,  but  now  spreading  everywhere,  of  water-color 
painting.  To  the  remainder  of  the  school  it  bears  the  same  re- 
lation that  lyric  verse  does  to  the  rest  of  literature,  or  a  people's 
songs  to  their  affections.  The  style  suits  both  a  cultivated  and 
common  audience  of  ordinary  poetical  sensibilities.  Its  tone  of 
color  is  on  a  higher  key  of  light  than  is  proper  to  oils.  Not 
possessing  their  force,  capacity,  or  dignity,  it  cannot  supersede 
them  in  the  more  serious  efforts  of  painting,  though  it  has  spe- 
cific qualities  and  facilities  that  warrant  the  favor  with  which  it 
has  been  received. 

Having  thus  outlined  the  motives  of  English  painting,  let  us 
look  at  some  of  the  masters  who  represent  its  extremes  of  idea 
and  treatment.  It  is  not  worth  our  while  to  go  back  to  the 
Sir  Peter  Lely  period  of  light  portraiture,  for  no  merely  frivolous 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS. 


199 


style  has  any  soundness  of  heart  to  consider,  while  his  influence 
was  as  transient  as  tlie  lives  of  the  frail  beauties  who  employed 
him.  JEsthetic  fashions  come  and  go  with  the  caprices  of  pat- 
rons and  the  servility  of  their  painters.  The  vapid  execution 
even  of  a  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  has  no  interest  except  to  his 
sitters. 

It  is  otherwise  with  artists  who  refuse  to  toy  with  art  to 
catch  the  fancies  of  the  uninstructed  rich  man,  or  degrade  it  to  a 
plaything  of  rank.  Their  works  may  be  far  below  their  ideal, 
yet  lift  the  public  taste  to  a  higher  level  of  artistic  understand- 
ing at  each  effort  to  reach  it.  Genuine  work  is  sure  to  incite 
genuine  enjoyment  finally.  Now  the  British  school,  which  was 
in  type  or  sentiment  genuinely  national,  begins,  as  was  fitting, 
with  artists  who  believed  that  the  essence  of  painting  was  embry- 
onic in  color,  and  that  their  chief  ofQ.ce  was  to  bring  its  power 
to  the  surface ;  form  being  the  skeleton,  and  color  the  quickening 
breath,  as  was  the  conviction  of  the  Venetians.  If  their  success 
fell  short  of  their  ambition,  it  was  because  the  standard  of  ex- 
cellence left  by  Titian  in  painting,  like  that  of  Phidias  in  sculp- 
ture, is  so  close  upon  the  subtlety  of  nature's  own  modelling  that 
only  a  genius  especially  endowed  of  her  may  hope  to  rival  him. 

Real  progress  commences  when  the  inferior  master  perceives 
in  the  greater  that  superiority  which  he  covets.  Copying  may 
help  his  practice  and  instruct  him  in  theory,  but  it  cannot  be- 
stow the  cunning  of  hand  that  marks  quite  as  distinctly  the  gulf 
that  separates  genius  from  talent  as  does  thought  itself. 
Reynolds,  believing  in  Titian,  became  a  colorist.  But 
not  having  the  power  to  express  all  he  conceived,  and  failing  to 
detect  by  chemical  tests,  as  those  do  who  thus  seek  it,  the  secret  of 
Venetian  vitality  of  coloring,  he  groped  his  life  away  in  shortcom- 
ings, though  not  without  executing  works  which  have  been  useful 
in  helping  reclaim  the  British  public  from  its  gfeneral  insensibility 
to  color.  So  deeply  did  Sir  Joshua  feel  this  bari-enness  that  he 
said  despairingly,  "  There  is  not  a  man  on  earth  who  has  the  least 
notion  of  coloring."  Again,  "  It  is  totally  lost  to  art."  He  was 
right  in  his  esteem  for  it  and  estimate  of  the  prevailing  ignorance 
throughout  Europe,  but  wrofig  in  supposing  that  a  lost  art  could 
be  renewed  by  means  of  chemistry  and  manual  dexterity  alone. 
He  would  have  done  sounder  work  if  he  had  not  lost  time 
chasing  an  ignis  fatui,  a  mistake  common  to  small  artists, 
though  not  to  be  regretted  in  them  as  with  one  competent  to  do 
better  things. 


200 


GAINSBOROUGH. 


In  view  of  the  consummate  modelling  of  color  in  Titian's 
"  Venus,"  portraits  of  Canaro  and  the  gray-eyed  unknown  man  of 
the  Pitti,  not  to  cite  other  wonders,  it  is  not  surprising  that  impres- 
sible artists  of  no  original  force,  like  the  American  landscapist 
Tilten,  should  theorize  themselves  into  a  maze  of  manual  blunders 
in  the  search  of  effects  as  hopelessly  beyond  their  powers  as  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare,  or  the  creation  of  woman  herself  Most 
artists  know  something  theoretically  of  former  methods,  but  are 
skilful  only  in  the  particular  one  taught  them  or  which  they 
work  out  for  themselves.  The  Greeks  knew  the  value  of  glaz- 
ings two  thousand  years  before  the  Venetians  wrought  them  into 
their  transparent  glow  of  harmony,  or  Correggio  into  his  glowing 
light.  Pliny  says  that  Apelles,  having  finished  a  picture  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  poured  on  it  a  liquid  which  gave  brilliancy  and  toned 
down  the  strong  hues.  Evidently  he  knew  the  modern  receipt 
for  lowering  their  pitch. 

It  is  the  charitable  fashion  to  attribute  the  want  of  success  of 
the  imitators  of  the  great  masters  to  some  technical  mistake,  as 
that  their  oils  were  faulty,  colors  impure,  or  they  put  transparent 
tints  over  opaque  before  these  were  dry,  which  absorb  the 
former.  Some  of  Leonardo's  pictures  have  suffered  on  account 
of  their  black  foundation  showing  through  the  superimposed 
half-tints  and  darkening  the  shadows.  But  who  fails  to  recog- 
nize the  hand  and  thought  of  genius,  despite  the  drawbacks  of 
time  and  chemical  changes?  If  Reynolds  could  not  recreate 
Venetian  in  English  painting,  or  William  Page  in  American,  it 
was  not  owing  to  vicious  methods  only.  When  England  and 
America  give  birth  to  original  genius  on  a  par  with  the  "old 
masters,"  we  shall  have  art  equal  to  theirs.  Meantime,  let 
either  nation  cultivate  such  talent  as  it  has  in  its  natural  direction. 
Gains-  Gainsborougli  doing  this,  attained  a  clearness  and 

borough.  delicate  gradation  of  tint  that  surpasses  his  rival's, 
besides  being  more  English  in  motives  and  style.  Still,  a  ''Holy 
Family  "  by  Reynolds  is  an  English  mother  of  the  common  type 
of  features  and  costume,  of  the  upper  class,  with  a  fine  boy  over- 
shadowed by  British  foliage.  It  was  as  affected  in  him  to  miscall 
his  theme,  as  it  was  indecent  in  Rubens  to  make  coarse  moulded 
women  and  wickedness  in  high  places  into  effigies  of  divine  per- 
sonages. The  English  artist,  however,  never  wounds  the  moral 
sensibility  by  his  anachronisms,  but  the  continental  shocks  pro- 
priety and  history  alike.  A  respectable  mother  fondling  her 
child,  whether  called  a  Madonna  or  Mrs.  Blank,  is  always  a 


HOGARTH. 


201 


pleasing  spectacle,  but  no  grandiloquence  of  titles  or  wealth  of 
jewels  can  bring  the  mind  to  accept  the  lineaments  of  a  well- 
known  sinner  for  those  of  an  immaculate  Virgin.  English  art 
often  disappoints  in  execution,  but  its  morality  is  certain  to  be  at 
the  highest  gauge  of  the  nation's. 

Another  pleasing  feature  of  British  colorists,  including  Wil- 
son, is  their  refinement.  Their  aesthetic  tone  is  superior  to  that 
which  came  into  vogue  with  the  sturdy  realism  of  the  next  gen- 
eration, which  introduced  into  art  more  of  the  ruder  elements  of 
life,  to  the  detriment  of  the  older  idealism  of  character  and 
scenes.  Although  Reynolds  had  no  better  subjects  to  paint  than 
his  successors,  his  portraits  will  always  be  valuable  because  of 
their  high-bred  grace  and  dignity. 

More  striking  contrasts,  in  the  scope  of  motives  and  treatment, 
obtain  in  England  than  is  usual  in  the  schools  of  the  continent. 
Hogarth  is  supremely  English.  No  other  land  could  ^ 
have  bred  him.  He  is  the  climax  of  its  insular  moral- 
ity and  anti-aesthetic  mind,  scorning  foreign  art,  habits,  and 
idealisms,  a  Spurgeon  of  the  brush,  realistic  to  the  spine,  not 
for  dirt's  sake,  but  having  an  ethical  aim  that  savors  more  of 
the  puritan  pulpit  than  the  palette,  and  a  sharp  satire  that  cuts 
into  shams  as  a  surgeon's  knife  into  tumors.  A  strong  man  with 
a  strong  purpose,  he  seizes  on  painting  as  the  most  handy  mirror 
in  which  to  reflect  the  manners,  vices,  and  misery  of  his  gener- 
ation in  a  series  of  unique  pictures,  unsurpassed  in  incisive 
delineation  of  character.  No  old  rules  for  him.  He  draws  and 
colors  by  his  own  formula.  The  intensity  of  his  art  springs 
from  its  truth.  Hogarth  is  the  typical  Englishman  who  will 
wash  his  dirty  clothes  in  public.  What  cares  he  how  fetid  are 
the  sores  he  strips  of  their  dirty  rags,  if  but  healthy  air  be  let  on 
to  them.  Virtue  with  him  is  a  materialistic  dame  just  as  vice 
is  physically  horrible.  He  distributes  reward  and  punishment 
in  a  substantial  manner,  according  to  the  average  Protestant 
notions  of  what  honesty  or  dishonesty,  truth  or  falsehood  ought 
to  lead  to  on  earth,  only  they  often  do  not. 

Hogarth  is  the  Nemesis  of  mob-vice  and  fashionable  sin,  re- 
lentless to  both.  What  would  not  one  give  to  have  as  realistic 
a  series  of  paintings  from  life  in  Babylon  when  Daniel  read 
its  fate  on  the  wall ;  in  Memphis,  when  Moses  was  set  adrift 
on  the  Nile ;  in  Jerusalem,  when  Jesus  was  martyred ;  or 
in  the  Rome  of  the  Caesars,  as  Hogarth  has  given  of  the 
London  of  the  Georges  :  pictures  which  intensify  in  interest  as 


202 


HOGARTH  AND  FRITH. 


civilization  advances.  A  Gaul  dealing  with  similar  facts  con- 
fuses the  naked  truth  with  his  spirituel  fancies  and  delight  in 
the  decorative  or  sensational.  He  has  not  in  him  the  whole- 
some faculty  of  truthful  caricature.  He  must  exaggerate  him- 
self or  nation,  because  glory  is  the  'dearest  wish  of  his  heart. 
Hogarth  looks  the  home-devil  out  of  countenance  with  his  un- 
flinching gaze.  What  business  has  he  with  theories  of  transmitted 
wretchedness  and  official  do-everything  or  do-nothingness  ?  If 
the  reputation  of  England  is  bloated  he  will  prick  it.  Here  is 
the  sill  and  the  sinner  so  brought  forward  that  you  cannot  give 
them  the  go-by  on  the  opposite  side.  An  English  brother  and 
sister,  each  wretch  exactly  what  England  has  grown  on  its  proper 
soil,  a  fire  from  hell  burning  away  the  frail  props  of  political  and 
social  respectability.  "  Up  !  O  Englishmen,"  shouts  Hogarth ; 
"  put  it  out  ship-shape,  or  be  irretrievably  damned." 

Plain,  practical  preaching  of  the  brush  this,  such  as  is  seldom 
put  before  human  eyes !  If  more  had  been  given  to  art  as  art,  the 
intense  realism  of  the  compositions  would  have  been  weakened. 
Now  we  must  see  what  Hogarth  saw,  and  from  his  point  of' 
view.  He  has  conferred  honor  on  genius  by  giving  it  the  noble 
mission  of  calling  the  "lost"  to  repent.  In  general,  genius 
prefers  the  society  of  the  "  saved,"  reversing  the  example  of  the 
"  Son  of  God."  If  we  look  in  Hogarth  only  for  that  beauty 
which  is  the  music  of  the  eye,  we  may  turn  away  disgusted ;  for 
as  grapes  refuse  to  grow  on  brambles,  so  aesthetic  repose  is  not 
the  companion  of  crime,  nor  is  sensuous  delight  the  handmaiden 
of  gin-consoled  poverty. 

The  stern  realism  of  Hogarth  partakes  too  much  of  an  ap- 
peal to  conscience  to  be  popular  as  art,  although  his  humor  miti- 
gates his  unpalatable  revelations.  A  favorite  realism  of  English 
people  is  one  which  gives  a  prosaic  representation  of  current  in- 
cidents, as  for  instance,  the  "  Derby  Day,"  and  "  Railway  Station 
of  Frith ; "  coarse,  forcible  pictures,  devoid  of  assthetic  feeling 
alike  in  composition  and  color,  but  entertaining  as  matter  of  fact 
spectacles  of  certain  phases  of  life  in  the  bustling  British  hive. 
Being  the  chosen  art  of  the  crowd,  it  is  the  best  paid  of  all,  and 
applauded  the  loudest ;  whereas  it  bears  no  nearer  relation  to 
fine  art  than  an  ordinary  novel  does  to  fine  literature.  Yet  it  is 
more  advantageous  for  the  multitude  to  possess  what  they  like 
and  comprehend,  as  a  basis  of  training  their  taste,  than  to  have 
their  minds  perplexed  by  the  more  ambitious  eclecticisms  of  the 
Sir  Benjamin  West  class,  which  require  reference  to  books  to  be 


LANDSEERS  ANIMALS. 


203 


intelligible,  or  to  be  disappointed  in  their  notions  of  art  itself  by 
the  frantic  efforts  of  a  Hay  den  to  clutch  the  academic  transcen- 
dental. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  the  English  school  that  it  produces  so 
many  well-instructed  artists  inspired  by  motives  suited  to  the 
comprehension  of  all  persons,  and  yet  in  moral  tohe  salutary, 
stimulating  to  the  intellect,  and  pleasing  in  an  aesthetic  sense. 
Landseer's  devotion  to  animals,  though  his  work  has  too  much 
of  a  surface  look,  is  in  keeping  with  the  public  feeling.  His 
pencil  is  more  humane  than  that  of  the  Dutchman  Sneyders, 
whose  broader  brush  revels  chiefly  in  the  ferocious  instincts  of 
brutes  and  the  bloody  trophies  of  the  chase.  Landseer  keeps 
uppermost  the  bracing  effects  of  hunting  as  an  out-door  exercise 
on  the  hunter,  and  the  keen  development  of  his  physical  senses  as 
he  copes  with  the  sharp  instincts  of  his  game,  while  his  triumph 
is  not  in  a  cruel  death  of  overmatched  victims,  which  continen- 
tal painters  of  animal  life  depict  with  profound  satisfaction,  but 
in  overcoming  physical  diflSculties,  in  daring  pursuit,  and  in  the 
hardihood  gained  by  an  invigorating  pleasure.  Our  feelings  are 
not  lacerated  by  needless  parading  of  torn  limbs  and  gory  mouths. 
Instead,  a  healthful  sympathy  is  incited  by  the  courageous  attack 
or  defence  which  puts  the  instinctive  faculties  to  their  highest 
test,  before  the  fatal  moment  arrives  ;  or  admiring  pity  at  the 
resignation  with  which,  the  animal  having  exhausted  his  resources 
of  escape,  confronts  his  destiny,  pathetically  rebuking  man  for 
his  wantonness. 

The  English  painter  loves  man  and  animal  too  sincerely  to 
put  either  on  the  rack.  Furthermore  he  is  the  court-painter  of 
dogs  and  horses,  evidently  preferring  to  see  them  sharing  the 
luxuries  and  pride  of  station  of  their  aristocratic  owners,  with  a 
seemingly  latent  idea  of  an  equality  of  souls  in  his  two  and 
four-footed  patrons  ;  at  least  of  intimate  affinities  which  exalt 
the  dumb  if  they  do  not  the  speaking  animal,  though  in  his 
hands  they  never  debase  the  human  being.  No  one  of  common 
sensibilities  can  fail  of  being  favorably  impressed  in  regard  to 
dependent  brutes  by  Landseer's  portraiture  of  them. 

Higher  up  in  aesthetic  range  and  the  development  J^l^Jll^' 
of  character  we  find  two  representative  painters  of  the  Leech. 
genre-historical  style,  each  a  type  of  substantial  Brit- 
ish idiosyncrasies  of  temperament :  Wilkie  and  Leslie,  the  one 
Scotch  and  the  other  American  born,  but  true  English  artists  in 
selection  and  execution.    Wilkie  had  a  rich  fund  of  that  humor  * 


204 


WILKIE  AND  LESLIE. 


which  honors  and  amuses  humanity :  a  quiet,  racy,  tender,  truth- 
ful picturesque  method  of  composition,  harmonious  as  a  whole 
while  abounding  in  delicate  by-play  ;  not  masterly  but  agreeable 
in  color,  faithful  throughout  in  work,  sincere  at  heart,  and  clear- 
headed.    Honest  Wilkie ! 

Leslie  had  more  culture,  but  a  narrower  understanding  and 
more  contracted  heart.  He  was  not  a  genius,  like  Wilkie. 
His  coloring  is  an  offence  to  painting,  deficient  in  harmony,  unity, 
tone,  and  meaning.  It  concentrates  the  worst  faults  of  his 
school.  There  are  men  who  paint  even  worse  becausb  knowing 
less,  not  for  feeling  less.  Leslie's  coloring  may  be  locally  true, 
but  as  used  by  him,  becomes  cold,  coarse,  and  heavy,  disturbing 
that  refined  unity  of  characterization  and  composition  which  was 
his  strong  point.  In  taste  and  sympathies  he  was  kindly  aris- 
tocratic, not  recognizing  the  people  of  his  generation,  as  did 
Wilkie,  nor  yet  offending  them.  His  is  a  limited,  high-toned 
well-informed  manner,  suited  to  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  in- 
structed classes  who  care  more  for  art  as  a  literary  than  an 
aesthetic  enjoyment.  Wilkie  painted  for  a  numerous,  Leslie  for 
an  exclusive  circle. 

Although  Leech  was  not  a  painter,  he  represents  one  of  the 
most  welcome  and  deepest  ingrained  phases  of  British  art, 
founded  on  the  national  perception  of  the  ultra-ridiculous  and 
fallacious.  He  was  most  clever  in  making  caHcature  a  vital 
detective  force,  exposing  humbug,  scenting  mischief,  and  present- 
ing the  truth  to  popular  apprehension  in  a  ludicrous,  wholesome 
way,  carrying  conviction  to  head  and  heart  quickly  and  pleas- 
antly. The  branch  of  art  of  which  he  was  chief  master,  an- 
swers as  a  pictorial  conscience  for  the  nation,  reflecting  its  imme- 
diate impressions  of  good  or  bad  of  themselves  aud  others  ;  in 
the  main  with  fairness  and  common  sense.  Its  blisterings  excite 
the  healthful  action  in  the  public  skin,  though  sometimes  it  runs 
into  uncharitableness  and  thoughtlessness  out  of  haste  to  joke. 
Yet  it  is  never  malignant,  immoral,  or  irreligious,  and  as  free 
from  actual  cant  as  anything  human  may  be  just  now.  It  has 
originated  a  singularly  trenchant  and  graphic  style  of  design, 
broad  in  manner,  pointed  in  detail,  free  from  senseless  exaggera- 
tion, which  as  in  French  caricature  overshoots  its  mark,  quick  in 
seizing  the  roots  of  character,  sharp  as  lightning  in  application, 
of  large  and  minute  observation,  sleight  of  hand,  which  constant 
study  and  practice  alone  can  keep  up,  and  a  skill  in  sugaring  its 
bitterest  pills  with  enough  of  fun  to  reconcile  even  its  butts  to 


CHARACTER  OF  ''PUNCH: 


205 


them  ;  indeed,  to  make  its  heaviest  home-thrusts  valued  as  evi- 
dence of  Iiigh-game,  for  it  loves  better  to  strike  upwards  than 
downwards. 

"  Punch  "  is  as  thoroughly  a  British  product  as  Hogarth.  Ital- 
ian caricature  is  inventive  and  excoriating ;  careless  in  design, 
vehement  and  ingenious,  excessively  irreligious,  making  as  free 
use  of  the  figures  of  the  Holy  Trinity  as  of  pope  or  emperor,  to 
point  its  shafts.  Devoted  to  political  propagandism,  in  which  it  is 
very  effective,  it  conveys  and  defines  ideas  to  the  populace  by 
aid  of  the  ridiculous,  with  a  rapidity  and  emphasis  that  books 
cannot  rival.  The  most  hopeful,  original  art-talent  of  Italy  now 
takes  this  direction,  as  the  sole  one  sustained  by  the  common 
mind,  or  for  which  it  has  a  hearty  liking.  But  its  use  is  con- 
fined to  the  exigencies  of  politics,  while  the  caricature  of  Eng- 
land, taking  in  all  the  globe,  overlooks  no  topic  of  interest  to 
humanity  at  large. 

What  emphatically  distinguishes  it  is  respect  of  woman.  She 
is  as  fair  game  in  the  ordinary  course  of  her  eccentricities  and 
follies  as  the  common  Englishman  for  snobbery  or  both  for  obesity 
or  stupidity  ;  but  her  chastity  and  the  domestic  relations  are 
never  trifled  with  or  sneered  at.  "  Punch's "  familiar  English 
virgin  is  an  ever  delightful  picture  of  jouth,  health,  beauty,  and 
goodness.  Her  mother  is  the  respected  matron  and  faithful  wife 
that  she  ought  ever  to  be.  That  tenderness  for  the  erring  and 
fallen,  which  comes  of  Christian  pity  and  desire  of  their  redemp- 
tion, beautifully  sung  by  Hood,  is  likewise  a  vital  characteristic 
of  British  morality  in  art.  It  is  praiseworthy  in  the  nation  to 
sustain  "  Punch  "  ;  nobler,  that  its  ethical  standard  is  thus  pure 
and  independent.  France  would  not  tolerate  the  latter  even  if  it 
had  talent  equal  to  the  former.  Neither  would  America  in  the 
present  despotism  of  public  opinion,  outside  of  politics  and  impa- 
tience of  sound  criticism,  though  its  regard  for  women  and  stand- 
ard of  domestic  morality  are  quite  equal  to  the  English,  perhaps 
a  mite  higher. 

One  artist  stands  alone,  an  exceptional  man  at  any  -S^«^e. 
period,  but  the  more  remarkable  as  coming  to  light  in  the  Eng- 
lish school,  against  whose  materialistic  tendencies  he  was  a 
spiritual  protest,  as  he  was  an  enigma  to  the  nation.  By  his 
contemporaries  he  was  called  the  "  mad  "  painter.  But  was 
William  Blake  more  mad  than  Milton,  whose  verse  records 
visions  akin  to  those  the  artist  drew?  Are  his  extraordinary 
creations  the  fruit  of  a  disturbed  imagination,  or  the  orderly 


206 


WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


sequence  of  a  rare  gift  of  spiritual  insight  ?  Blake  looked  into 
worlds  unnoted  by  the  outward  eye.  His  vision  was  not  com- 
plete or  thorough.  None  earthly  may  be ;  but  it  was  approx- 
imative ;  revealing  glimpses  of  scenes  of  too  intense  grandeur 
and  beauty  to  be  apprehended  by  mortals  unless  partially  veiled 
in  that  imperfection  which  is  our  common  heritage  while  in  the 
body,  or  given  as  faint  suggestions  of  celestial  truths.  Ezekiel, 
Isaiah,  John  of  Patmos,  Dante,  Milton,  Swedenborg,  all  the  great 
utterers  of  spiritual  knowledge,  have  an  advantage  over  their 
fellow-seers  who  rely  on  plastic  and  pictorial  means  to  embody 
their  discoveries.  Neither  Phidias,  nor  Fra  Angelico,  succeed  in 
forming  out  of  the  concrete  so  perfect  an  image  of  what  is  in 
their  souls  as  can  the  prophet  and  poet  of  theirs  out  of  the  ab- 
stract. Matter  is  refractory,  while  the  latter  is  a  spiritual  pro- 
cess appealing  directly  to  kindred  senses  for  interpretation,  or 
the  completion  of  what  the  imagination  outlines.  We  should 
therefore  always  remember  in  favor  of  the  artist  his  specific 
disadvantage  in  any  effort  to  render  the  super-excellent.  Words 
paint  sublimity  better  than  colors,  for  the  receiving  thought  it- 
self is  illimitable,  while  the  external  organs  are  limited  by  their 
own  and  the  objective  matter.  Great  artists  see  mentally  as  far 
as  great  poets,  only  their  medium  of  expression  is  less  subtle 
and  manageable. 

The  reverse  holds  good  in  ordinary  art.  A  common  picture 
of  common  events  conveys  to  the  beholder  a  definite  idea  or 
sight  quicker,  more  completely  and  pleasurably  than  does  the 
printed  description,  since  it  is  merely  an  affair  of  the  eye, 
without  call  on  the  imagination.  Hence  as  the  vast  majority  of 
people  judge  of  pictures  by  their  skins,  they  think  an  eye-painter 
like  Frith  is  a  prodigious  artist,  while  a  soul-painter  like  Blake 
must  be  foolish  or  crazy.  And  their  judgment  is  the  more  em- 
phatic if  the  drawing  and  coloring  of  the  unintelligible  artist 
has  not  the  superficial  likeness  to  nature  of  his  rival. 

Blake  c  ^rtainly  indulges  in  wayward  freaks  of  composition, 
and  displays  marked  defects  or  recklessness  of  design.  But 
even  these  seem  to  have  a  purpose  and  meaning  clear  to  him  if 
not  to  others  ;  as  likewise  his  system  of  coloring.  One  of  the 
oldest  and  most  accomplished  of  living  English  artists,  who  in  his 
youth  knew  Blake  well,  and  saw  a  large  painting  of  his  of  a 
Welsh  historical  subject  treated  ideally,  but  not  then  finished, 
says  it  was  as  remarkable  for  force  of  coloring  and  the  quality 
of  its  composition  and  design  as  for  its  originality  of  thought. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


20T 


"What  became  of  this  immense  canvas  he  never  knew.  Fuseli 
told  Blake  with  truth,  when  he  came  to  the  Academy  to  learn, 
that  he  was  better  qualified  to  teach  them. 

Blake's  disparaging  critics  overlook  an  important  point. 
The  supernal  has  no  tangible  model ;  and  in  such  instances,  the 
artist  not  only  must  make  his  own  law,  but  by  the  nature  of 
his  motive  his  hand  is  the  insufficient  tool  of  his  idea.  Michael 
Angelo  swayed  to  and  fro  between  his  power  of  hand  and  force 
of  thought.  Whenever  the  former  got  loose  rein  it  led  him 
into  anatomical  extravagances  of  composition,  whereas  the  lat- 
ter, however  incomplete  in  manual  realization,  magnetizes  the 
spectator  by  its  inherent  greatness  of  conception.  Felix  told 
Paul  that  much  learning  had  made  him  mad.  All  insight  into 
highest  truth  meets  with  similar  accusation  before  the  current 
mind  rises  to  its  level.  This  happened  to  Blake,  aggravated  by 
his  independence  of  the  world  and  occasional  artistic  careless- 
ness or  incoherency. 

Nevertheless  Blake  is  a  unique  master  of  the  spiritual-sub- 
lime —  a  creative  artist-poet  of  remarkable  originality.  He 
alone  would  serve  to  redeem  the  English  school  from  its  re- 
proach of  overweening  materialism  and  deficiency  of  exalted 
motive.  As  its  spiritual  faculties  become  developed,  Blake's 
fame  rises  and  his  inspirations  are  better  appreciated.  In  view 
of  the  results  they  were  better  termed  revelations.  All  prophetic 
revelation  stammers  as  it  passes  human  lips.  It  reaches  us 
m  Orphic  fragments,  susceptible  of  varied  construction,  leaving 
gaps  difficult  to  fill,  yet  on  the  whole  ennobling  and  inspiriting. 
Whatever  originates  in  the  world  of  spirits  must  come  to  us 
in  this  imperfect  guise  whilst  material  barriers  intervene. 

Blake's  place  in  art  is  the  antipodal  extreme  to  Hogarth's. 
He  revealed  the  frightful  secrets  of  earth's  hells  as  a  warning. 
Blake  let  in  light  from  the  heavens  to  console,  and  opened  to 
mortal  eyes  vistas  of  happier  homes  beyond  the  grave.  Had 
he  been  a  Catholic,  his  mind  would  have  been  preoccupied  by  a 
defined  mythology  which  would  have  governed  his  pencil.  But 
born  where  the  boundaries  of  religious  thought  are  less  fixed, 
he  rose  to  heights  and  penetrated  to  depths  before  unknown  to 
his  school.  He  was  the  first  to  graphically  embody  the  con- 
soling truth  of  the  immediate  resurrection  of  the  soul,  which 
although  exemplified  by  Jesus,  seems  never  to  have  been  gener- 
ally comprehended  by  Christians.  I  refer  to  his  sublime  composi- 
tion of  the  corruptible  putting  on  incorruption,  in  the  form  of 


208 


WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


decrepit  age  tottering  on  crutches  into  the  tomb,  reluctant  to  en- 
ter, but  the  next  instant  seen  as  a  perfect  spiritual  being  in  the 
figure  of  immortal  youth  rising  from  tfie  top  of  the  sepulchre, 
gazing  upwards  in  rapture  at  the  celestial  light  that  electrifies 
his  new-found  existence. 

What  art  before  or  since  has  been  so  transfigured  by  the 
dearest  of  all  divine  truths  to  humanity  ?  Wliat  we  feign 
would  believe  here  bursts  on  our  consciousness  as  a  beneficent 
law  of  nature  taking  out  that  "  sting  of  death  "  which  before  Blake 
art  heightened  rather  than  assuaged.  Regard,  too,  in  the  illustra- 
tions of  the  "  Grave,"  how  beautifully  he  shows  the  release  by 
death  of  the  soul  from  the  body  :  its  brief  moment  of  amazement 
and  curiosity  at  a  glorious  unexpected  change,  its  notions  having 
been  obscured  or  falsified  while  on  earth ;  the  preliminary  expe- 
riences of  new-birth  and  final  joy  at  rejoining  friends  in  a  land 
whose  mansioris  though  many  and  lovely  are  not  constructed  or 
distributed  after  the  unequal  ways  of  earth. 
Gilchrist's  artistic  clairvoyance  like  the  above,  Blake  opens 

'L^V^"/  ,    to  the  human  heart  fresh  fountains  of  hope.  The 

Blfik€  vol. 

i.,p.  30et  illustrations  of  Job  best  evince  his  range  and  power 
of  the  sublime.  He  says  of  himself,  "  I  do  not  behold 
the  outward  creation,  and  that  to  me  is  an  hindrance  and  not 
action."  "  All  things  exist  in  the  human  imagination."  And 
again,  Mere  natural  objects  always  did  and  do  weaken,  deaden, 
and  obliterate  imagination  in  me."  When  ten  years  old,  he 
sees  "  a  tree  filled  with  angels,  bright  angelic  wings  bespangling 
every  bough  like  stars,"  and  meets  angelic  figures  walking  amid 
the  haymakers  at  work  in  the  fields  he  frequented.  How  un- 
like Raphael's  and  Leonardo's  theories  and  practice  in  relation 
to  their  ideals  !  They  studied  natural  objects  with  cool  heads 
and  clear  eyes,  content  to  find  their  models  in  living  men  and 
women  and  the  creation  around  them.  Blake  virtually  despised 
them  all.  The  core  of  his  philosophy  of  art  ran  through  an 
imagination  more  sublimated  in  a  spiritual  sense  than  ever  be- 
fore was  given  to  a  painter.  Material  things  did  not  exist  to 
him  when  the  inspiration  was  on  him.  "  Instead  of  the  sun,  a 
round  disk  of  fire,  I  see  an  innumerable  company  of  the  heav- 
enly hosts  crying,  Holy,  Holy,  is  the  Lord  God  Almighty." 
Further  he  adds,  "  I  question  not  my  corporeal  eye  any  more 
than  I  would  a  window  on  seeing  a  spirit."  To  appreciate  his 
art  we  must  go  to  him  to  learn  its  informing  motives,  for  any 
less  a  guide  would  lead  astray.     That  becomes  intelligible 


mLLIAM  BLAKE. 


209 


which  otherwise  might  be  regarded  as  a  mystic  craze.  We  are 
prepared  to  see  Blake  design  the  Almighty  as  if,  like  Job  him- 
self, he  had  seen  Him  riding  on  the  whirlwind  which  covers  the 
Lord  as  with  a  mantle  of  wrath.  There  is  an  imaginative 
probability  to  his  conception  that  reconciles  the  mind  to  the  at- 
tempt to  incarnate  the  Unrepresentable.  His  "  Ancient  of  Days  " 
is  more  majestic,  grave,  old  in  the  light  of  venerable  authority, 
than  the  mediaeval  effigies  ;  far  more  realizing  the  spiritual  con- 
stitution, strictly  subordinating  to  it  the  external  form  of  a  Being, 
who  appears  actually  as  the  centre  of  light  and  life  of  all  things. 
Then,  too,  how  human  He  seems,  as  if  comprehending  and  feeling 
all  that  man  suffers  and  enjoys.  See  how  mournful  God  looks,  as 
if  half  repenting  Him  of  his  inscrutable  purpose  in  commissioning 
Satan  to  vex  Job.  He  even  pities  Satan  as  He  casts  him  head- 
long into  the  pit ;  but  the  angels  rejoice  at  being  rid  of  their  arch- 
enemy, who  falls  in  a  sheet  of  flame  as  only  Blake  could  make 
a  fiend  fall. 

With  what  fatherly  love  God  blesses  Job,  in  the  end  triumph- 
ant over  his  tormentor.  Note  the  general  resemblance  be- 
tween their  figures !  Blake  not  only  sees  that  man  was  createdi 
in  his  Maker's  image,  but  attaches  a  peculiarly  subtile  spiritual; 
meaning  to  the  likeness,  as  if  Job  impersonified  the  God  in  man 
on  earth,  and  his  victory  was  that  of  the  eternal  right  which 
made  them  one  forever,  blessed  evermore. 

What  terrible  repose  in  the  "  Spirit "  that  made  Job's  hair 
stand  on  end  *as  it  passed  like  a  vapor  before  him,  glorifying 
the  firmament  and  dazzling  the  mountain  summits  with  an  effiil- 
gence  which  turns  the  light  of  the  sun  into  blackness.  Clair- 
voyants describe  spirits  as  Blake  depicts  them,  with  rays  ot 
light  or  color  coming  from  them  and  forming  an  atmosphere  in 
which  they  move  and  by  which  their  nature  is  disclosed.  Those 
beautiful  supernal  beings,  which  represent  the  Sons  of  God, 
and  the  Morning  Stars  in  the  highest  empyrean,  shouting  for 
joy,  are  as  exquisitely  as  originally  conceived  in  this  incorporeal 
but  yet  not  formless  manner.  None  other  ever  so  majestically 
and  so  substantially  brought  down  to  human  ideas  by  symbolic 
creation,  the  essences  of  the  divine  forces  that  surround  and  up- 
hold the  great  white  throne. 

The  Book  of  Job  lifts  Blake  far  above  the  mundane  standard 
of  men  and  things.    His  types  are  stupendously  real  neverthe- 
less, devoid  of  coarse  exaggerations  of  physical  attributes,  su- 
pernal characterizations  of  the  sublimest  invention,  vitalized  by 
14 


210 


WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


a  dramatic  power  of  mind  and  hand  as  wonderful  as  new  in  art ; 
and  which  fits  equally  well  men  and  spirits.  What  cowering  fear 
affects  the  wicked  ;  what  profound  sorrow  and  humility  the  mourn- 
ful !  Seeing,  as  it  were,  passions  and  emotions,  he  invests  them 
in  forms  that  disclose  their  deepest  natures.  The  angels  shrink 
from  Satan  who  comes  into  their  midst ;  for  he  is  the  evil  force, 
not  incarnated  ugliness,  but  grand  in  stature,  physical  strength, 
and  sinful  ambition,  —  a  dark  Son  of  the  Morning  ;  demoniacal 
in  attributes  rather  than  figure,  which  is  muscular,  swarthy,  and 
natural ;  the  evil  being  internal  and  reflected  through  the  exter- 
nal, not  changing  its  original  heroic  outline.  There  is  nothing 
of  the  vulgar,  gloating,  sensual  diabolism  of  the  ordinary  nature 
of  the  Devil  in  Blake's  creation,  which  is  a  truly  conceived  in- 
fernal potency  in  the  likeness  of  man-evil,  as  the  Saviour  is  of 
the  man  made  spiritually  perfect. 

Perhaps  the  grandest  example  of  Blake's  sublimity,  is  the 
plate  representing  "  Satan  going  out  from  the  presence  of  God 
to  afflict  Job."  There  is  a  disturbed  concentric  spasm  of  the 
heavenly  hosts  like  the  swing  of  a  universe  trembling  on  the 
.brink  of  an  awful  catyclysm,  but  held  in  secure  check  by  the 
central  Almighty  repose,  which  contrasts  marvellously  with 
the  astonishment  and  forebodings  of  the  Sons  of  God,  whose 
graceful,  rapid  movements  are  in  no  less  striking  contrast  to  the 
supernatural  velocity  of  Satan  as  he  exultingly  descends  head 
foremost  amid  smoke  and  flame  to  the  earth.  Although  his 
figure  is  only  one  inch  long  it  embodies  more  colossal  grandeur 
than  the  tallest  Italian  fresco  of  man  or  devil.  Raphael's  "  Eze- 
kiel "  is  child's  play  in  sublimity  beside  the  best  of  his  tiny  com- 
positions, which  bring  together  in  artistic  unity  the  powers  of 
heaven,  earth,  and  hell,  in  a  few  square  inches. 

Vehement  action  would  seem  to  be  Blake's  chief  success,  if 
one  did  not  regard  with  great  attention  those  designs  in  which 
the  lyric  takes  the  place  of  the  epic  movement.  With  what 
quiet  simplicity  and  naturalness  Job's  happiness  and  prosperity, 
before  and  after  his  suffering,  are  delineated ;  no  self-congratu- 
lation on  account  of  wealth  or  position,  but  the  devout  humble 
worshipper,  the  repose  of  true  piety,  being  the  law  of  the 
great  man.  The  mystic  grandeur  of  the  colored  design  of 
the  "  Crucifixion  "  displays  his  capacity  of  effecting  much  by 
sparse  means.  It  has  a  Rembrandtish  emphasis  of  light  and 
shadow,  joined  to  purity  of  design  and  sentiment  foreign  to  the 
Dutchman.    The  infinite  sweetness,  tenderness,  and  spirituality 


NEW  ENGLISH  SCHOOL. 


211 


of  Blake  are  more  especially  discernible  in  his  "  Songs."  Of 
his  strange,  visionary  portraiture  I  need  not  speak,  as  they  have 
no  direct  connection  with  his  real  merits,  as  shown  in  the 
works  already  cited. 

There  is  a  class  of  English  artists  who  occupy  an 
intermediate  position  between  the  common  realists  and  school. 
those  of  absolute  genius  like  Hogarth,  Blake,  and  Turner ; 
men  of  sound  English  morality  in  choice  and  treatment.  They 
exhibit  cultivated  taste,  independent  judgment,  original  inven- 
tion, refined  feeling,  poetical  sentiment,  and  an  intellectual  vision 
keen  and  broad.  Nor  are  their  technical  virtues  less  noticeable. 
Industry,  enterprise,  patient  elaboration,  thorough  study  of  their 
motives,  a  profound  regard  for  art  itself  theoretically  and  prac- 
tically, having  an  aesthetic  conscience ;  all  these  are  conspicuous 
traits.  Whatever  culture,  talent,  and  ardor  may  accomplish,  they 
aspire  to  do.  As  in  literature  there  are  writers  who  strive  to  per- 
petuate a  purity  and  excellence  of  style  derived  from  the  classics 
of  their  country,  and  yet  admit  legitimate  innovation,  so  in  paint- 
ing, the  artists  to  whom  I  now  refer  endeavor  to  incorporate 
whatever  is  meritorious  and  useful  of  old  methods  into  modern 
practice,  in  subjection  to  the  current  taste  and  ideas.  Their 
contempt  of  superficial  training,  willingness  to  learn  from  all 
sources,  and  fearlessness  of  experiment,  give  them  an  initiative  in 
art-progress,  so  that  while  representing  the  growth  of  aesthetic 
knowledge  they  in  large  measure  also  lead  and  direct  it.  Still 
I  cannot  perceive  that  there  exists  in  England  any  extensive,  in- 
telligent enjoyment  of  art.  The  multitude  are  ignorant  of  its  in- 
tellectual functions,  and  have  no  sufficient  opportunity  to  train 
their  senses  to  catch  its  more  fleeting  pleasures.  On  this  point, 
man  for  man,  England  has  not  much  to  boast  over  America. 
But  she  has  provided  a  foundation  for  progress  in  a  class  of  able 
artist-scholars,  who  keep  alive  aesthetic  traditions  and  principles, 
and  numerous,  wealthy  patrons  disposed  to  overpay  in  their  com- 
petitive eagerness  to  secure  favorite  works,  more  perhaps  from 
associations  of  a  refined,  fireside  luxury  in  possessing  them  as 
objects  which  can  never  become  cheap  and  common,  than  from  an 
enlightened  appreciation  of  art  itself.  Like  the  kindred  cultiva- 
tion of  literature  as  an  unfailing  source  of  happiness  expanding 
by  exercise,  a  liberal  comprehension  of  art  must  long  remain  the 
exalted  privilege  of  a  few.  There  is  however  no  impediment  in 
free  countries  to  the  spread  of  art-culture  except  that  callousness 
of  feeling  which  comes  from  inattention.    Its  claims  are  slowly 


212 


MILLAIS  AND  HOLMAN  HUNT. 


making  themselves  felt  through  the  obvious  advantages  which 
are  seen  to  accrue  to  national  civilization  everywhere  in  enlarg- 
ing and  refining  the  popular  means  of  happiness.  Without  un- 
duly exalting  the  wholesome  influences  of  this  younger  school,  it 
seems  to  me  to  have  more  vigor,  instruction,  and  better  methods 
than  its  immediate  predecessor ;  not  only  seeing  with  more  ac- 
curacy but  keeping  to  a  higher  standard  of  aesthetic  faith. 

Unfortunately  for  their  fame  and  the  world's  benefit,  the 
painters  of  England  are  bound  to  their  own  island  by  golden 
chains.  Even  there,  it  is  difficult  to  see  their  best  works  collec- 
tively, owing  to  the  restrictions  of  private  ownership.  American 
amateurs  would  do  a  salutary  thing  were  they  to  temper  their 
eagerness  for  French  subjects  with  the  wholesomer  motives  and 
more  sincere  treatment  of  English  painters.  Millais,  Holman 
and  William  Hunt,  D.  Rosetti,  and  Leighton,  to  name  but  few, 
deserve  to  be  better  known  abroad.  They  paint  brilliantly  and 
with  signal  ability  and  versatility.  Their  training  is  robust,  their 
choice  alike  free  from  the  commonplace,  and  the  transcendent- 
ideal  or  conventional  grand,  while  their  treatment  both  of  great  or 
little  motives,  whether  altogether  to  our  fancy  or  not,  begets  re- 
spect for  its  honesty  and  acuteness.  They  have  greatly  widened 
and  deepened  the  range  of  English  painting,  introducing  a  truer 
realism  and  more  profound  theories  of  aesthetics.  If  they  have 
less  humor  and  satire  than  some  of  the  older  men,  their  percep- 
tion is  more  delicate,  science  truer,  and  feeling  more  sensitive ; 
in  fine,  they  have  created  a  superior  atmosphere  for  English 
painting. 

Millais,  Hoi-      Millais,  Holman  Hunt,  and  Dante  Rosetti  were  the 

man  Hunt,         .   .  ■,       o    ^  ■,         «      n     i  • 

D.  Rosetti.  origmators  and  "  forlorn  hope  oi  this  renovatmg 
movement,  which  they  made  successful  as  much  by  sheer  pluck, 
perseverance,  and  consistency  as  by  a  high  view  of  art  itself  and 
indomitable  talent ;  returning  year  after  year  in  the  Academy 
exhibitions  with  their  accurately  executed  and  carefully  consid- 
ered pictures,  until  they  overcame  prejudices  and  took  by  storm 
the  position  of  the  older  painters  in  the  estimation  of  critics. 
Their  long-deferred  success  was  as  sudden  as  complete.  There 
may  be  different  judgments  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  Millais 
and  Hunt,  but  that  they  are  conscientious  masters  of  rare  ability 
and  great  knowledge  none  can  dispute.  The  "  Sower  of  the 
Seed  "  of  the  former  is  an  impressive  composition  of  profound 
aesthetic  as  well  as  moral  meaning  ;  a  serious  thought  put  into 
serious  coloring  and  suggestive  design  of  prodigious  force.  Hunt, 


MILLAIS  AND  HOLMAN  HUNT. 


213 


in  his  chief  work,  "  The  Finding  in  the  Temple,"  inclines  more 
to  the  picturesque-historical  on  a  strictly  realistic  platform  of  art 
than  to  the  profoundly  emotional,  bringing  the  scene  in  its  mat- 
ter-of-fact probability  before  us,  like  a  brilliantly  told  narrative ; 
but  his  "  Light  of  the  World  "  shows  an  equal  love  of  the  pic- 
turesque symbolical.  The  range  of  their  fancy  and  motives  is  as 
wide  as  their  general  cultivation  and  acute  observation.  Any 
type  they  select  is  certain  to  be  well  treated  in  relation  to  itself 
as  art,  and  not  for  hasty  gains  and  transient  sensations.  They 
keep  in  mind  that  the  main  office  of  a  painter  is  to  paint,  teach- 
ing being  secondary.  This  rigid  adherence  to  the  first  principle 
of  sesthetics,  joined  to  a  high-minded  comprehension  of  the  moral 
and  intellectual  aspects  of  art,  imparts  to  the  English  school  of 
which  they  are  the  acknowledged  chiefs,  a  more  elevated,  if 
somewhat  restricted,  character  than  elsewhere  obtains.  Much 
is  also  due  to  the  generous  faith  of  these  rivals  in  each  other. 
The  history  of  art,  alas,  has  more  to  say  of  petty  jealousies  and 
vindictive  malice  than  of  paternal  kindness  in  cases  of  strong 
competition,  ending  sometimes  in  the  malicious  destruction  of  the 
obnoxious  works  and  the  murder  of  the  offending  artist  himself, 
as  the  records  of  the  Neapolitan  school  disclose.  It  is  delightful, 
therefore,  to  be  able  to  relate  an  act  of  these  masters  which 
honors  them  and  their  profession  equally.  Their  fortunes  at 
one  period  seemed  so  desperate  that  both  talked  of  abandoning 
art  lest  they  should  starve.  But  Millais  soon  after  meeting  with 
a  little  encouragement,  said  to  Hunt,  "  You  must  not  give  up  ; 
you  have  before  you  a  great  future ;  if  you  need  money,  share 
mine  ; "  which  Hunt  did  for  one  year,  when  Millais'  words 
were  so  verified  that  Hunt  in  one  week  had  sold  every  picture 
he  had  painted  during  years  of  unrequited  toil,  received  com- 
missions sufficient  to  occupy  him  for  several  more,  and  at  one 
bound  found  himself  famous  and  prosperous.  His  father  from 
the  first  had  opposed  his  becoming  an  artist  because  he  thought 
the  tendency  of  the  profession  was  immoral  and  vagabondizing. 

One  of  the  most  ambitious  of  recent  easel  paintings  is  the 
"  Florentine  Procession,"  by  Mrs.  Benham  Hay,  representing 
the  well-known  episode  in  the  career  of  Savonarola,  a.  d.  1489, 
when  the  children  of  Florence,  incited  by  his  preaching,  went 
from  house  to  house  demanding  that  meretricious  objects  of  art 
should  be  given  up  to  them  to  be  publicly  burned.  Mrs.  Hay 
has  produced  a  striking  picture  on  a  large  scale,  of  sufficient 
merit  to  prove  that  a  woman  of  talent  who  accepts  for  herself 


214 


MRS.  BENE  AM  HAY. 


the  same  severe  discipline  in  art  as  a  man,  may  approach  him  in 
technical  results.  Comparatively  few  men  do  better  work.  The 
architecture  is  good  in  tone,  true  in  quality,  and  correct  in  de- 
sign. Her  figures  are  dramatically  individualistic,  and  elabo- 
rately finished,  without  littleness.  Foreground  details  and  the 
varied  accessories  evince  a  bold  touch,  an  observant  eye  for  local 
truths,  and  considerable  skill  in  giving  material  qualities,  text- 
ures, and  functions.  There  is  a  prevailing  sense  of  space,  solidity, 
weight,  distance,  general  effect,  and  pai-ticular  action.  It  com- 
poses picturesquely,  and  evinces  thought  and  invention.  As  an 
ambitious  attempt  at  historical  painting,  the  picture  marks  an 
era  in  woman's  art.  Unhappily  it  is  neither  completely  realistic 
nor  idealistic.  Aiming  at  giving  an  actual  historical  incident,  it 
goes  part  way  in  that  direction,  then  abruptly  passes  into  the 
typical  and  symbolical.  Local  architecture,  including  the  Bap- 
tistery, part  of  Giotto's  Campanile  and  the  opposite  Loggia,  is 
well  rendered.  Some  of  the  Florentine  portraiture  and  costumes 
seem  inspired  by  the  frescoes  of  D.  Ghirlandajo.  Then  we  are 
taken  back  a  century  and  more  to  defunct  fashions,  but  these 
may  be  admitted  as  masquerading  of  the  moment,  were  not  their 
extravagant  and  rich  effects,  and  the  coarse,  more  Northern  than 
Italian  features  of  the  scoffing  spectators,  opposed  to  symbol- 
ical draperies  and  figures  of  the  Fra  Angelico  type,  without  his 
♦  power  of  spiritualization.  Allegory,  realism,  and  an  abortive 
attempt  at  refined  idealism  and  intense  spirituality  are  thus  con- 
founded to  the  loss  of  intellectual  and  technical  unity.  There 
are  also  sundry  anachronisms  of  styles  of  the  art-objects  collected 
and  carried  by  the  children,  some  things  antedating  the  event,  and 
others  only  in  existence  at  a  later  period,  especially  the  rococo 
"  Venus  "  and  its  frame,  and  the  bronze  satyr,  and  a  portion  of 
the  rich  stuffs  and  jewelry.  The  children,  too,  instead  of  being 
carried  away  by  the  excitement  of  their  fanatical  enterprise,  are 
impressed  by  conflicting  emotions.  Some  hesitate  and  evidently 
contemplate  the  coming  holocaust  with  reluctant  eyes.  Half- 
way feelings  have  no  place  in  fanaticisms  of  any  sort.  This 
want  of  unity  of  treatment  of  the  central  idea  produces  an  aes- 
thetic jar,  which  is  increased  by  the  failure  of  the  painting  to 
respond  to  its  title.  There  are  too  few  principals  or  spectators 
for  a  procession,  particularly  at  Florence,  where  the  slightest 
cause  calls  together  an  idle  crowd  as  if  they  dropped  from  the 
skies.  I  have  counted  ten  men  watching  an  eleventh  buy  two 
oranges  from  a  street-huckster.    Savonarola  kept  Florence  in 


THE  FLORENTINE  PROCESSION."  215 


perpetual  turmoil.  This  scene  in  particular  aroused  the  atten- 
tion of  the  whole  city.  Mrs.  Hay,  therefore,  in  treating  it, 
should  have  kept  it  consistent  throughout  to  one  phase,  whether 
historical,  typical,  or  ideal.  Now  we  are  perplexed  hy  several 
intellectual  points  of  view,  none  of  them  complete.  Her  idea  is 
intelligible  after  we  know  the  story  and  motive  consistent,  but 
as  history  the  painting  is  not  exact,  nor  is  it  artistically  correct 
and  harmonious. 

The  chief  mistake  is  the  introduction  of  the  tri-colored  awn- 
ing which  prolongs  the  picture  disagreeably,  makes  the  foreground 
figures  look  awkwardly  long,  mars  the  aerial  perspective,  could 
not  have  been  true  in  itself,  impairs  the  painting  every  way, 
especially  in  its  proportions  and  distance,  and  is  uncalled  for  in 
the  scene,  such  awning  being  put  out  only  to  screen  the  Holy 
Sacrament  in  the  great  festivals  of  the  Church.  There  is  a 
want  of  flow  of  movement  in  all  the  figures,  and  mastery  of  form 
and  action  ;  a  heaviness  of  outline,  detracting  from  the  in  general 
tolerable  modelling  and  drapery.  Mrs.  Hay  displays  skill  in 
the  management  of  color,  avoiding  offensive  glare,  and  toning 
down  the  redundant  white.  But  the  pitch  of  light  in  the  fore- 
ground and  mid-distance  is  too  strong  in  itself,  and  does  not 
unite  well  with  the  softer,  subdued  tone  of  a  background,  not 
as  remote  as  it  would  seem  to  be  here.  Too  much  stress  is  put 
on  details  which,  although  showing  cleverness  of  studio  practice, 
disturbs  the  general  mass.  Further,  the  spectator  can  divide 
the  composition  into  a  dozen  separate  pictures  of  groups,  each 
one  gaining  by  being  alone,  and  the  whole  not  suffering  by 
the  subtraction.  I  have  been  the  more  particular  in  naming 
the  defects  of  treatment  because  they  are  such  as  Mrs.  Hay  may 
obviate  if  she  means  to  continue  to  try  to  prove  the  capacity  of 
her  sex  to  win  the  rank  of  "  master  "  in  painting. 

It  is  comparatively  early  to  criticise  talent,  for  its  ten-  j^^^^^ 
dency  is  to  orderly  shape  and  classification.  Talents 
group  into  families.  Genius  stands  apart.  But  this  isolation  is 
one  element  of  its  greatness.  Whatever  be  the  cause,  there  is 
something  inexpressibly  mournful  in  that  reserve  which  forbids 
human  communion.  Yet  the  solitude  of  Jeremiah,  Dante,  and 
Michael  Angelo,  was  the  result  of  their  intense  yearning  to  en- 
noble humanity.  Such  men  stand  out  in  the  darkness  of  na- 
tions, like  light-houses  irradiating  gloom  and  flashing  warning 
on  sea-slime  and  breakers.  They  love  their  species  over- 
much,  not  too  little.    Nevertheless  there  are  rare  men  through 


216     CONTRAST  BETWEEN  BLAKE  AND  TURNER. 


whom  we  receive  precious  foregleams  of  divine  beauty  and 
hints  of  immortal  truths,  but  whose  moral  consciousness  is 
of  a  very  different  quality.  Some  men  are  grossly  earthy,  gritty, 
factious,  spitting  contempt  on  fellow-beings  instead  of  being 
stirred  by  an  infinite  compassion  to  guide  them  into  higher 
ways  of  life.  No  savageness  of  egotism,  satire,  or  coarse  in- 
stincts of  the  flesh  can  utterly  pervert  genius.  Though  it  fail 
in  its  own  salvation,  it  is  not  permitted  to  it  to  wholly  shirk 
its  obligations  to  the  world.  Blake's  visions  of  a  nobler  ex- 
istence than  the  present  caused  him  to  be  indifferent  to  or- 
dinary mundane  satisfactions  and  inspired  him  to  work  miracles 
in  art.  The  joy  and  independence  which  his  faith  fostered 
were  incomprehensible  to  those  whose  horizon  of  enjoyment 
was  bounded  by  material  things.  An  incapacity  of  a  higher 
belief  is  the  saddest  event  that  can  happen  to  any  man  ;  a 
tenfold  sadness  to  genius:  more  fatal  to  contentment  than  the 
mournfulness  born  of  want  of  faith  in  humanity  in  mass,  for  no 
evil  can  equal  that  of  disbelief  in  own  one's  soul.  Believing 
in  his,  Blake's  spirit  was  invulnerable  to  poverty  or  neglect. 
Turner  disbelieving,  insensible  to  religious  hope,  dreading  the 
logical  annihilation  of  his  cheerless  materialism,  that  awful 
phantom  of  eternal  nothingness  which  stalked  before  his  reason, 
devoted  his  powers  to  accumulating  fortune.  Gaining  it,  he 
grew  only  the  more  solitary  and  imbittered.  At  his  death, 
greedy,  neglectful  relatives  contrived  to  filch  it  from  the  chief 
purpose  of  his  long  toil  and  privation.  If  there  could  have 
come  to  him  in  the  grave  one  additional  pang  of  unhappiness, 
this  was  it. 

It  is  wholesome  to  contrast  the  interior  lives  of  Blake  and 
Turner.  By  so  doing,  we  shall  better  estimate  the  importance 
of  faith  to  men  of  genius  and  indirectly  from  their  example  to 
us.  In  the  world's  judgment,  Blake  was  the  more  unappre- 
ciated and  disappointed  of  the  two.  He  had  scarcely  a  taste  of 
that  intellectual  recognition  which  is  as  precious  to  the  humble 
as  the  proud.  Few  comprehended  or  cared  for  his  works  or 
words ;  none  besides  his  lowly  wife,  for  his  habits  or  his  visions. 
Of  money,  patronage,  fame,  in  one  word  success,  he  had  next 
to  nothing.  Keenly  sensitive  to  sympathy  and  encouragement, 
he  kept  himself  as  pure  and  unworldly  in  spirit  as  a  little  child. 
"  I  live  in  a  hole  here,  but  God  has  a  beautiful  mansion  for  me, 
elsewhere."  "  Lawrence  pities  me,  but  'tis  lie,  and  the  prosper- 
ous artists  like  him,  that  are  the  just  objects  of  pity.    I  pos- 


TURNER. 


217 


Bess  my  visions,  and  peace.  They  have  bartered  their  birthright 
for  a  mess  of  pottage."  To  a  friend  he  says,  "  May  God  make 
this  world  to  you  as  beautiful  as  it  has  been  to  me." 

Would  you  exchange  the  spiritual  riches  of  Blake  for  the 
heavy  guineas  of  Turner? 

As  an  artist  he  is  to  be  approached  with  diffidence ;  for  it  is 
as  difficult  to  adequately  understand  as  to  copy  him.  Yet  the 
oftener  one  goes  to  his  works,  as  to  nature  herself,  the  more 
profound  the  revelation.  Turner  believed  in  the  landscape. 
It  was  his  alpha  and  omega  of  a  world.  But  his  intercourse 
made  him  unhappy,  because  his  eyes  must  in  a  few  years  close 
on  it  forever.  Beyond  nature,  there  was  that  portentous  eclipse 
which  siiut  out  heaven  from  his  soul.  Consequently  he  con- 
centrated on  what  his  eyesight  took  in,  the  extraordinary  pow- 
ers of  his  imagination  and  observation,  with  a  degree  of  success 
that  entitles  him  to  be  called  the  one  complete  master  of  land- 
scape. 

Others  have  had  special  successes.  They  have  excelled  in 
certain  phases  or  qualities  and  been  content  therewith.  But 
Turner  was  the  first  to  raise  landscape  art  out  of  the  partial, 
common,  or  conventional,  on  to  the  same  complete,  sympathetic 
basis  of  truthful  treatment  as  the  human  figure,  imparting  to 
it  a  variety  of  expression,  and  profundity  of  feeling  commen- 
surate, so  far  as  art  vehicles  permit,  with  its  divinely  derived 
functions.  Before  him  great  artists  had  treated  landscape  in  a 
great  manner,  but  with  them  all  it  was  a  secondary  motive.  I 
speak  of  Titian,  Correggio,  Rubens,  Velasquez,  Rembrandt. 
The  lesser  landscapists,  Claude,  Rosa,  Domenichino,  Albano, 
Poussins,  and  men  of  their  calibre,  though  skilful  in  rendering 
separate  features  or  details,  were  never  imbued  with  its  real 
spirit,  or  observed  it  closely  and  surely.  They  were  eclectics, 
idealists  more  intent  on  creating  a  landscape  according  to  their 
notions  of  what  it  should  be,  or  subjected  to  a  central  motive 
foreign  to  itself,  than  if  studying  nature  from  the  only  legiti- 
mate point  of  view,  as  the  ancients  studied  the  human  figure, 
from  actual  life.  Dutchmen  and  Germans  had  painted  clever 
pictures  of  local  efiects  and  familiar  scenes,  but  seemed  more 
ambitious  of  fine  finish  and  mechanical  dexterity  than  of  a 
comprehensive  view  of  their  subject.  Theirs  was  an  eye- 
service  no  way  truer  of  heart  than  the  common  run  of  lip 
responses  in  religion.  Now  Turner  did  not  profess  to  see  God 
in  anything ;  talked  not  even  about  the  landscape ;  but  he 


218 


TURNER. 


silently  and  solitarily  threw  himself  bodily  into  it.  By  sheer 
force  of  native  sympathy  with  his  motive  he  steered  clear  of 
the  entanglements,  shortcomings,  and  contracted  ideas  of  the 
old  men,  and  after  mastering  all  they  knew,  got  to  interpene- 
trate its  moods  and  catch  its  likeness,  as  if  it  had  a  soul  of  its 
own  whereby  to  reflect  the  purposes  of  its  author. 

I  do  not  think  that  Turner  had  any  spiritual  consciousness 
of  this,  because  without  a  religious  sense  this  is  impossible.  It 
was  the  instinctive  sagacity  of  genius,  after  he  had  consecrated 
himself  to  nature,  that  gave  him  the  clue  to  her  secrets,  and 
drew  him  into  close  communion  with  phenomena  heretofore  un- 
observed by  art.  Turner  was  as  much  of  a  hermit  in  his  way 
as  most  of  the  old  mystics,  only  instead  of  tying  himself  to  a 
rock  in  a  wilderness  and  looking  inwardly  on  a  cramped  soul, 
he  went  to  and  fro,  untraceable  and  unknown,  over  the  earth, 
companionless,  with  his  eyes  searching  everywhere  for  the  ma- 
terial truth  and  beauty  of  creation.  How  could  nature  refuse 
its  confidence  to  one  who  so  unreservedly  gave  his  life  to  her. 
Assuredly  it  was  a  serious  misfortune  to  his  soul  not  to  have 
been  led  by  its  agency  into  a  spiritual  comprehension  of  its 
being.  But  his  eyesight  was  none  the  less  keen,  or  hand  less 
dexterous,  at  stopping  short  of  this  revelation.  His  unrivalled 
faculties  of  observation  were  directed  to  effects,  not  causes, 
while  his  memory  and  imagination,  developed  and  disciplined  in 
the  phenomenal  school  of  nature,  his  brush  gaining  skill  as  he 
detected  her  ways,  enabled  him  to  repeat  her  facts  in  infinite 
detail,  and  to  vary  or  compose  them  anew  with  vital  force  and 
suggestiveness. 

The  sesthetic  successes  and  failures  of  Turner  come  from  the 
same  deep  causes  of  will,  and  are  analogous  to  the  extrava- 
gances of  anatomical  compositions  of  Michael  Angelo.  The 
Englishman  was  as  imperious  over  color  as  the  Italian  over 
form.  He  wished  to  enslave  it  to  his  caprices  and  fancy.  There 
is  something  sublime  in  his  conceptions  of  the  latent  forces  and 
meaning  of  colors.  He  refused  to  believe  that  they  could  be 
reduced  to  scientific  law.  His  daring  experiments  either  af- 
fronted the  men  of  rule  or  were  offensive  enigmas  to  the  crowd. 
Turner  flung  color  into  his  canvas  with  a  volcanic  brush,  bent 
on  resolving  ideas  or  creating  forms,  as  if  he  had  only  to  say, 
"  Let  there  be  light,"  and  light  was.  This  overmastering  pre- 
sumption of  thought  and  hand,  —  for  his  fiery  haste  and  erratic 
invention  led  to  a  frequent  disregard  of  the  qualities  and  liraita- 


TURNER. 


219 


tious  of  his  vehicles,  and  also  of  natural  law  itself,  —  although 
it  produced  at  times  great  suggestions  if  it  did  not  great  work, 
also  gave  origin  to  much  mad  work,  not  like  Blake's  spiritual- 
istic visions,  but  crazy  from  excessive  materialism  of  purpose. 
Constable  would  spit  with  disgust  at  sight  of  these  lawless  ex- 
periments. Turner,  however,  was  as  indifferent  to  blame  as  to 
praise.  It  sufficed  him  that  he  understood  himself.  He  scorned 
those  who  could  not  comprehend  him,  brother  artists  above  all. 
His  aim  was  to  grasp  the  creative-absolute,  and  master  the 
infinity  of  nature.  Ambition  of  this  character  looked  with 
contempt  on  the  seekers  of  the  superficial  pretty.  A  single 
truth  in  his  view  was  simply  a  single  letter  of  the  alphabet  of 
the  landscape.  To  attempt  its  likeness,  hosts  of  facts  must  be 
brought  together  in  magnificent  variety  and  glow. 

The  strength  of  Turner  is  most  felt  in  his  masterly  render- 
ing of  the  little  as  well  as  great  features  of  nature,  sugges- 
tiveness  of  forms  and  moods,  and  the  essential  relations  and 
differences  of  things  by  means  of  color.  His  canvases  have 
minds.  They  are  intellectual  rather  than  emotional  appeals. 
Pictures  form  within  pictures.  There  is  an  all-pervading  mys- 
tery of  meaning  or  expression  in  his  masterpieces,  whether  in 
oils  or  water-colors.  Nature's  infinite  self-hood  is  felt  and  seen. 
He  recasts  the  varied  splendor  of  the  elements,  with  magical 
sleight  of  color.  He  is  the  first  to  portray  the  real  life  of  the 
clouds ;  to  thrill  one's  senses  with  their  magnificent  symphonies 
of  alternating  gloom  and  glory  as  wrought  out  by  sunlight  and 
shadow,  or  the  marshalling  of  their  innumerable  storm  hosts. 

Turner  is  too  profoundly  original  to  have  successful  disciples. 
The  benefit  he  does  art,  is  to  manifest  its  capacities  in  a  new 
and  popular  direction.  Landscape  art  has  not  advanced  since 
him  as  a  whole,  any  more  than  figure-painting  since  Titian.  If 
we  gain  in  particular  we  lose  in  general  aspects.  It  is  easier  to 
denounce  his  wilfulness  and  exaggerations  than  to  equal  their 
reserved  power  and  suggested  thought.  He  never  hesitates  to 
sacrifice  the  little  and  literal  in  design  to  heighten  the  eloquence 
of  coloring  in  mass.  Figure-drawing  is  often  limited  to  splashes 
of  color.  His  later  compositions  particularly,  are  crowded  with 
details,  which  seen  separate  confuse,  but  as  wholes  declare  a 
definite  purpose.  There  are  water-colors  and  notes  of  effects 
that  seem  like  bits  of  nature  itself.  Turner's  first  pitch  of 
coloring  was  after  the  old  masters.  He  subsequently  originated 
that  daring  rivalry  of  tint  with  nature  as  far  as  pigments  would 


220 


TURNER. 


permit  which  has  since  become  so  disastrously  common,  making 
white  lead  its  chief  reliance  for  atmosphere  and  light.  This 
is  as  exhaustive  of  resources  in  the  outset,  as  it  would  be  for  a 
general  to  bring  all  his  reserves  into  battle  at  the  first  onset. 

Unfortunately,  much  of  the  best  work  of  Turner  is  the  most 
perishable,  owing  to  his  technical  recklessness  and  wantonness  of 
experiment.  Each  year  impairs  our  means  of  adequately  know- 
ing him.  To  point  some  of  them  out  as  clearly  as  time  and 
decay  will  admit,  I  refer  to  a  few  of  the  more  characteristic  of 
his  works  open  to  the  public.  In  audacity  of  original  concep- 
tion and  gorgeous  painting,  what  excels  Ulysses  deriding  Poly- 
phemus ; "  for  the  imaginative  terrible,  the  Dragon  of  the  Hes- 
perides  ; "  for  weird,  supernal  invention,  the  "  Angel  standing  in 
the  Sun ;"  for  tender  sweetness,  atmosphere,  and  poetical  feeling, 
"  Crossing  the  Brook  ;  "  for  profound  pathos,  "  Old  Teraeraire  ; " 
and  for  picturesque  sentiment  and  solemn  association  of  the 
sea  with  the  un  heads  toned  dead,  the  "  Burial  of  Wilkie." 
Verily,  Turner  had  an  immortal  soul,  whether  he  recognized  its 
future  or  not. 

Once  beginning  to  show  the  versatility  of  Turner  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  pause.  But  descriptions  and  allusions  to  works  of  art 
are  of  little  satisfaction  to  those  who  have  not  access  to  them. 
Turner  is  as  completely  the  climax  of  the  English  mind  in  his 
department  of  art  as  Shakespeare  is  in  his.  Each  embodies  the 
national  feeling  for  nature  as  it  is,  one  in  man,  the  other  in 
the  landscape,  with  some  analogy  of  creative  power  and  reveal- 
ment  of  profound  and  subtle  truths.  I  do  not  think  that  Turner 
proposed  to  himself  any  deeper  motive  than  to  render  what  his 
eye  caught,  fancy  wove,  or  to  produce  splendid  or  involved 
mysterious  effects  in  rivalry  of  nature's.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
fact  remains  that  England  enjoys  the  honorable  distinction  of 
having  produced  the  most  varied  and  thorough  master  of  land- 
scape. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  ART  OF  JAPAN 

N  the  opposite  side  of  the  globe,  at  the  remotest 
point  from  Euglaud,  there  is  another  insular  race 
of  strongly  marked  nationality,  and  possessing  as 
characteristic  an  art,  as  far  as  it  extends,  as  the 
English.  Like  theirs,  its  civilization  in  the  outset 
was  derived  from  the  contiguous  continent.  But  whatever  it 
took  from  China,  the  fountain  of  its  art,  was  speedily  assimi- 
lated into  fresh  and  vigorous  forms.  Rigorously  excluding  all 
foreigners,  until  within  a  few  years,  we  have  known  nothing  of 
its  real  character.  Even  now  our  knowledge  is  restricted,  but 
what  we  have  learned  indicates  a  people  possessing  remarkable 
artistic  skill,  though  in  theory  and  practice  widely  differing 
from  European.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  get  a  glimpse  of  an 
original  art,  which  has  intrinsic  merit,  and,  including  the  kin- 
dred Chinese,  is  the  exponent  of  the  taste  of  nearly  one  fourth 
of  the  human  family. 

The  art-design  of  China,  so  far  as  is  now  known,  is  in- 
ferior to  that  of  Japan,  though  fundamentally  similar.  Only  a 
faint  instinct  is  shown  for  graceful  outline.  In  general,  the 
choice  goes  to  the  odd,  brilliant,  grotesque  and  ugly,  but  strik- 
ing in  decoration  without  any  constructive  connection  with  the 
main  object.  Idealization  of  the  human  form  is  unknown.  Their 
oldest  illustrated  books  and  manuscripts  are  finer  executed  than 
the  modern,  but  with  similar  minute  elaboration,  and  disregard  of 
truth  of  form,  perspective,  and  rules  of  composition.  Were  Ori- 
ental art  proper  represented  only  by  the  un-ideal,  monotonous 
Chinese  design,  it  would  not  deserve  notice  other  than  as  a  curi- 
osity. But  that  of  Japan  is  as  much  beyond  it  in  execution  and 
expression,  as  the  art  of  England  and  France  is  superior  to  the 
meagre,  stagnant  Byzantine.  We  can  get  no  adequate  notion 
of  the  aesthetic  capacity  of  the  furthermost  Asiatics  and  the 
peculiar  direction  it  takes,  without  becoming  acquainted  with 
Japanese  work.    My  conclusions  are  based  on  a  series  of  an- 


222  ILLUMINATED  MANUSCRIPTS. 


cient  manuscripts,  splendidly  illuminated  in  water-colors  on 
powdered  gold  backgrounds  of  varied  tones,  bearing  the  im- 
perial mark,  mounted  on  cloth,  in  silk-bound  volumes,  measur- 
ing sixteen  inches  high  by  thirty-eight  long.  A  scholar  from 
Jeddo  informed  me  that  the  writing  was  too  ancient  for  him 
to  read,  but  that  it  related  to  a  war  which  occurred  eight  cen- 
turies since,  between  a  Chinese  and  Japanese  emperor.^  Be 
this  as  it  may,  the  volumes  are  lavishly  adorned  with  elaborate 
paintings  of  great  delicacy,  and  brilliancy  of  design  and  tinting, 
representing  battles,  sackings,  marches,  mythological  scenes, 
towns,  landscapes,  historical  events,  and  domestic  scenes,  ban- 
que tings,  executions,  religious  rites.  The  mode  of  using  gold 
differs  entirely  from  the  old  European  methods.  It  is  ef- 
fective as  lustre,  but  breaks  up  the  pictures,  leaving  portions  of 
the  scenes  in  a  golden  fog,  or  obscured  by  a  sort  of  frost-work 
of  the  same  rich  material,  which  is  also  largely  used  in  details 
of  armor,  costumes,  and  wall  decorations,  but  on  so  minute  a 
scale  as  to  require  a  magnifying  glass  to  make  out  all  the  de- 
sign. The  treatment  of  the  landscape  backgrounds  is  conven- 
tional, bordering  on  the  symbolical,  while  the  rest  of  the  work 
is  realistic,  aiming  to  secure  the  utmost  splendor  of  particular 
effects,  consistent  with  a  quiet  harmony  of  general  tone. 
Throughout,  the  masses  of  color  are  carefully  balanced  and 
opposed. 

Besides  these,  I  have  studied  the  works  of  later  men  of  re- 
pute in  Japan.  Some  are  colored  albums  of  landscapes,  cos- 
tumes, domestic  and  national  incidents.  Two  series  deserve 
Boun-Tiyd  Special  mention.  One  is  by  Boun-Tiyo  a  recent 
and  oksai.  ^rtist,  the  Other  by  Oksai,  who  lived  one  or  two  gen- 
erations back,  my  Japanese  informants  not  being  precise  as  to 
the  period  of  his  death.^    Both  are  distinguished  names  of  the 

1  A  European  scholar  tells  me  that  the  books  in  question  form  part  of  a 
series  of  nine  volumes,  of  great  antiquity,  translated  from  the  Chinese  into 
Japanese,  with  notes,  relating  to  love,  war,  mj'tholog}'",  and  contain  moral 
axioms  and  other  instructive  matter,  compiled  from  ancient  authors.  The  set 
was  splendidly  got  up  and  illuminated  for  the  ladies  of  the  imperial  household, 
but  that  he  had  never  seen  others  than  those  in  my  possession,  nor  could  he 
find  the  work  mentioned  in  any  Chinese  catalogue.  My  Japanese  informant 
said  that  he  knew  of  but  one  other  series,  and  that  was  in  the  royal  library  at 
Jeddo. 

2  Oksai  is  said  to  be  an  assumed  name  of  the  artist,  like  that  of  George 
Sand,  and  literally  refers  to  or  means  the  locality  of  the  studio  or  place  where 
the  designs  were  executed. 


OKSAI. 


223 


same  school,  the  first  showing  much  cleverness,  the  last  decided 
genius.  Indeed,  he  is  the  great  Japanese  master,  ranking  at 
home  as  Albert  Durer  does  in  Germany,  Hogarth  in  England, 
and  Dore  in  France ;  in  fact,  exhibiting  some  likeness  to  the 
intellectual  qualities  and  executive  capacities  of  each  of  these 
artists,  but  after  a  novel  method  of  his  own,  and  with  a  ver- 
satility of  invention  that  would  be  remarkable  anywhere. 
Such  is  the  similarity  of  motive  and  treatment  of  some  of  the 
designs  of  Oksai  and  Dore,  that  one  might  infer  the  latter  had 
taken  effective  hints  from  the  former,  which  is  not  improbable, 
as  Oksai's  volumes  appeared  in  Paris  at  the  time  some  of  Dore's 
most  striking  designs  were  published. 

Oksai's  works  are  so  voluminous,  that  I  conjecture  they  must 
contain  the  drawings  of  more  than  one  master,  probably  a 
school  of  artists.  One  series  is  a  sort  of  pictorial  encyclopedia, 
containing,  by  a  rough  computation,  more  than  twelve  thousand 
designs,  partly  colored,  in  thirty-nine  or  more  volumes,  divided 
into  three  sets,  illustrative  of  life,  manners,  arts,  natural  history, 
scenery,  caricature,  religious  myths,  poetry,  riddles,  and  science ; 
in  fine,  a  compendium  of  Japanese  civilization  and  products, 
mainly  in  sharp  outline.  His  albums  of  birds  are  said  to  be 
exquisite,  but  too  costly,  and  so  much  esteemed  in  Japan  as  to 
leave  a  small  chance  for  the  foreign  collector  to  obtain  any. 
Oil-painting  is  not  practised,  except  as  a  late  European  inno- 
vation. They  give  examples  of  our  science  of  perspective 
without  radically  adopting  it ;  at  least  Oksai  does. 

The  first  aspect  of  Japanese  art  is  most  striking  for  its  odd- 
ness.  A  prolonged  examination  discloses  artistic  qualities  which 
amply  compensate  for  those  technical  shortcomings  or  omis- 
sions that  our  system  of  art-training  prepares  our  eyes  instan- 
taneously to  notice.  Japanese  artists  render  certain  truths  with 
prodigious  characterization,  while  neglecting  some  that  we  hold 
to  be  indispensable.  Indeed,  these  do  not  appear  to  enter  into 
their  theory.  The  most  obvious  are  the  common  rules  of 
perspective,  distance,  proportion,  symmetry,  light  and  shadow. 
It  is  common  to  omit  fore  and  back-grounds.  The  figures  exist 
only  in  and  by  themselves,  quite  independent  of  local  accesso- 
ries. Without  these,  and  a  proper  distribution  of  details  to 
make  up  a  complete  whole,  we  feel  that  a  picture  is  wrong. 
Japanese  artists  emphasize  forcibly  the  main  point,  and  neglect 
side  issues  or  aids.  Their  testhetic  point  of  view,  feeling,  and 
comprehension  is  antipodal  to  the  Occidental.    They  concen- 


224 


JAPANESE  SYSTEM  OF  DESIGN. 


trate  attention  on  a  few  aims ;  we  divide  and  scatter  it  among 
many.  Our  system  gives  the  impression  of  general  fidelity  to 
nature ;  theirs  a  special.  It  is  broken  talk,  like  infants'.  Their 
system  omits  much  in  a  picture,  as  did  our  old  religious  painters, 
intent  on  their  central  idea,  that  modern  European  art  requires. 
The  Japanese  display  a  vigor  of  realism  seldom  equalled  by 
Europeans.  By  the  simplest  means  they  suggest  distance,  per- 
spective, broad  masses,  far-off  horizons  of  sea  and  land ;  in 
short,  an  effective  realization  of  the  larger  features  of  landscape. 
Zigzag  lines  adroitly  lead  the  eye  into  interminable  space. 
Abstract,  easy,  and  prosaic  as  this  means  is,  nothing  more 
quickly  arouses  the  imagination  to  complete  the  landscape. 
Church,  Auchenback,  and  their  class,  paint  so  that  the  reflection 
of  their  work  does  not  pass  on  from  the  eye  to  the  mind. 
They  give  more  to  see,  but  we  actually  see  less.  A  Japanese 
artist,  in  drawing  a  house,  is  most  likely  to  put  it  wrong  end 
foremost  as  to  perspective,  but  he  will  give  breadth  and 
grandeur  to  the  landscape  as  a  whole,  without  any  perceptible 
effort  or  elaborated  artifice,  but  by  a  sort  of  visual  instinct. 
Grammatically  it  may  be  all  wrong,  but  the  impression  is  truth- 
fully profound.  However  this  is  accomplished,  art  secures  its 
chief  triumph.  Our  artists  have  something  to  learn  from  as 
well  as  to  teach  the  Japanese.  If  the  latter  by  rapid,  incisive 
outline  gives  a  better  idea  of  a  given  object  than  the  former  by 
laborious  drawing,  then  we  needs  must  recognize  in  the  Asiatic 
a  technical  sleight  of  hand,  and  an  insight  into  the  character  of 
the  thing  represented,  superior  to  the  Europeans.  All  who 
examine  the  drawings  of  the  Oksai  series  are  astonished  at 
their  forcible  characterization  and  action,  independent  of  mod- 
elling or  relief.  Noteworthy  results  are  produced  by  solid  or 
shaded  outlines  only,  with  a  few  light,  rapid  touches  to  indicate 
parts  or  movement. 

The  genius  displayed  is  interpenetrative  and  demonstrative, 
unique  in  quality,  delighting  in  that  action  which  exaggerates 
or  ridicules  the  real,  yet  truthful  and  thorough  in  reproducing 
the  habits,  instincts,  actual  life,  and  absolute  identity  of  plant, 
insect,  fish,  bird,  animal,  or  man.  Oksai's  style  of  drawing  sur- 
passes any  similar  efforts  that  I  have  seen  in  Europe.  I  feel 
at  once  exactly  what  he  means  me  to  see,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  latent  vitality  or  instincts  of  the  objects  rendered,  or 
capacity,  if  it  be  human.  Oksai  evokes  the  fraternity  of  life, 
whether  I  wish  it  or  no ;  teaches  me  natural  history  and  human 


SUPERIORITY  OF  JAPANESE  ART. 


225 


nature,  often  ludicrously,  always  genially,  sometimes  coarsely, 
but  ever  truthfully.  I  may  admire  Audubon's  and  Bonaparte's 
birds,  for  their  correctly  painted  plumage  and  forms,  but  one 
glance  at  Oksai's  colorless  or  tinted  designs  awakens  more  sym- 
pathy with  animal  life,  besides  disclosing  the  instincts  and  hab- 
its of  birds  and  beasts  in  a  more  graphic  manner,  than  the  highly 
finished  European  illustrations.  This  specific  superiority  applies 
also  to  the  vegetable  kingdom,  and  to  man  himself  in  his  ordi- 
nary aspects.  Oksai  makes  him  lift,  struggle,  play,  joke,  gamble, 
love,  fight,  boast,  beg,  juggle,  eat,  stand,  walk,  pull,  repose,  in  fine 
live,  with  a  realism  that  I  find  nowhere  else  more  intensely  genu- 
ine. No  idealization ;  no  sacrifice  to  conventional  propriety ;  no 
aspiration  for  the  beauty  of  flesh  or  of  holiness ;  no  special  dig- 
nity or  majesty,  though  plenty  of  lively  posing  and  accurate 
action ;  nature,  earth-nature  ;  Japanese  men  and  women  of  all 
grades,  exactly  as  they  are;  such  is  the  inexorable  logic  of 
Oksai's  pencil.  Would  that  I  could  reproduce  a  few  hundred 
of  his  designs  to  illustrate  my  words,  but  it  would  require  time 
to  do  it.  There  are  mere  dots,  the  tiniest  of  touches  and 
strokes,  that  have  in  them  a  kingdom  of  meaning.  The  effect 
is  increased  by  the  nicely  shaded  paper,  perfect  printing,  and 
delicately  colored  inks  of  the  best  editions. 

Japanese  art  is  worth  studying,  if  for  no  other  end  than  to 
see  how  thoroughly  it  opposes  the  objective  common  to  the 
subjective  beautiful  of  the  Greeks.  Each  is  a  generic  success. 
Yet,  as  regards  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  the  Japanese 
style  of  design  is  singularly  idealistic  in  the  sense  of  rendering 
with  great  exactitude  and  wonderful  refinement  the  essence  of 
the  thing  itself,  in  that  shape  or  action  which  most  perfectly 
expresses  its  vital  functions.  This  is  particularly  true  of  birds, 
leaves,  flowers,  and  grasses,  which  display  as  close  an  observa- 
tion of  their  finer  forms  and  manner  of  growth,  joined  to  an  in- 
tuitive perception  of  their  inner  organization,  as  did  the  Gre- 
cian sculptors  of  the  human  figure.  The  Japanese  recognize 
souls  in  things.  Some  may  insist  that  their  skilful  treatment 
of  the  lower  forms  of  creation  is  the  result  simply  of  keen-eyed 
imitation.  But  the  Chinese,  Dutch,  and  French  genre  painters 
are  painfully  exact  in  imitating  objects,  without  giving  them 
that  subtle  consciousness  of  organic  existence  which  the  Japan- 
ese infuse  into  their  work. 

Oksai  and  Phidias  are  masters  of  the  human  figure,  but  in 
what  diverging  systems  and  aims !  In  view  of  their  purpose, 
15 


226 


JAPANESE  HUMOR. 


both  are  equally  true.  But  the  Athenian  evokes  the  godlike 
in  man ;  the  Oriental,  the  every-day  human,  choosing  that  type 
and  movement  which  thoroughly  demonstrates  his  earthiness. 
When  he  indulges  in  the  mystical,  transcendental,  or  sentimental, 
it  is  oftenest  as  grotesqueness  and  diabolism,  or  to  invent  super- 
nal ugliness,  as  the  ancients  created  beauty  to  be  admired  for 
its  own  sake.  A  people  can  be  trained  to  delight  in  the  false 
as  readily  as  the  true.  As  they  become  habituated  to  artifice 
and  error,  their  taste  gravitates  towards  them.  The  mind  for- 
feits its  faculty  of  detecting  and  appreciating  the  really  beautiful. 
The  skill  and  feeling  which  Japan  has  shown  in  managing 
minor  motives,  indicate  a  capacity  for  a  more  exalted  ideal  in  the 
higher.  But  her  aesthetic  bias  and  standard  being  guided  by 
false  conceptions  of  religion  and  low  aims,  her  artists  were 
obliged  to  develop  corresponding  types.  In  estimating  their 
ability,  we  must  keep  steadily  in  sight  what  they  meant.  They 
are  far  from  being  incompetent  or  ignorant.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  exceedingly  clever,  apt,  and  skilful  in  whatever  they 
touch,  only  their  taste  is  at  fault  from  want  of  right  culture. 

In  one  respect  the  American  and  Japanese  mind  is  somewhat 
alike ;  and  this  is  a  capacity  of  broad  humor  and  appreciation  of  the 
wit  which  makes  exaggerated  contrasts  and  ridiculous  similitudes. 
We  make  fun  of  very  serious  things,  not  in  art  yet,  because  we 
have  not  learned  how,  but  in  newspapers.  The  Japanese  puts 
an  undercurrent  of  drollery  into  his  gravest  motives.  Oksai 
represents  the  terrific  thunder-god,  fantastically  sublime,  whose 
lightnings  fall  among  a  group  of  peasants,  causing  a  ludicrously 
fatal  catastrophe.  The  wind-god  is  an  extravagant,  burlesque  con- 
ception of  a  being  borne  rapidly  through  the  air  by  an  immense 
bag  of  wind  around  his  neck.  Regard  the  tiger-stealth  of  the  as- 
sassin creeping  up  in  the  jungle  behind  a  fashionably  dressed  per- 
sonage serenading  the  full  moon  with  a  flute.  A  cold  shiver  passes 
over  one  at  the  intensely  murderous  movement,  while  the  naive 
unconsciousness  of  evil  of  the  victim  absorbed  by  his  transcen- 
dental occupation  in  the  midst  of  a  sinister  landscape,  provokes  a 
smile.  The  serenity  of  the  enticing  moonlight  is  admirably  offset 
by  the  glum  death-stroke  approaching  from  out  of  the  shadow.  It 
might  pass  for  the  genius  of  a  fatal  fever  about  to  strike  down  the 
unsuspecting  victim  in  the  zest  of  his  pleasure.  Whether  it  tells 
a  tale  or  points  a  moral,  only  a  reader  of  the  text  may  know ; 
but  it  is  one  of  varying  hundreds  equally  quaint  and  vigorous,  of 
which  the  mocking  spectre  of  the  air,  a  shadowy,  bat-like  face  on 


NONSENSE-ART. 


227 


a  female  form,  whose  long  black  hair  half  envelops  her  elf-like 
body,  and  streams  wildly  back  as  she  speeds  through  the  sky,  and 
the  genius  of  solitude,  a  more  comely  nude  figure,  with  similar 
hairy  covering,  sitting  and  gazing  into  vacancy  with  intense  ear- 
nestness, one  hand  on  the  mouth  and  the  other  clutching  the  knee, 
are  pertinent  specimens.  Humor  is  omnipresent  in  Oksai's  work. 
Oddity,  contrast,  burlesque  monstrosity,  enigma,  the  laughable, 
ferocious,  terrible,  ironical,  exaggerated,  foolish,  droll ;  birds  and 
animals  humanized  by  man's  vices,  follies,  or  fun  ;  men  turned  by 
enchantment  into  impossible  monsters,  doing  the  most  extrava- 
gant vagaries ;  such  are  some  of  his  inventions,  literally  a  Non- 
sense-art, unique  in  variety,  force,  and  comicality.  Leonardo's 
freaks  with  the  human  face  are  labored  extravagances  compared 
with  Oksai's  grotesque  maskery.  However  absurd  his  pencil, 
its  juggling  cleverness  and  quickness  make  his  nonsense  seem 
as  if  nature  itself  was  playing  the  fool.  Noses  like  the  pro- 
boscis of  an  elephant  are  fitted  to  human  faces  in  a  life-like 
manner,  and  made  to  do  the  strangest  acts.  One  young  lady 
ties  a  pen  to  hers,  and  writes  love-songs  on  the  wall  of  her  cham- 
ber. Arms,  legs,  and  necks  suddenly  grow  to  snake-like  lengths, 
and  involve  their  possessors  in  frightful  scrapes.  Jugglers  and 
conjurors  perform  miracles  that  would  amaze  the  most  credulous 
believers  in  vulgar  spiritism.  Oksai's  genius  in  this  connection 
might  aptly  be  surnamed  Legion. 

Much  of  the  drapery  of  people  of  rank  appears  stiff,  angular, 
and  cumbersome,  though  scarcely  more  so  than  that  of  the 
earlier  German  schools.  In  part  this  is  intentional,  though  the 
lines  of  all  drapery  are  sharp  and  incisive,  with  very  little  curve 
and  flow.  The  ease  and  naturalness  of  the  smaller  figures, 
sometimes  graceful  and  dignified,  are  admirable.  Costume  fits 
the  action.  Although  figures  are  generally  flatly  outlined,  lacking 
contour  and  projection,  the  suggestion  of  form  is  good,  and  the 
meaning  strongly  put. 

As  is  to  be  expected  with  a  people  having  no  Japanese 
idea  of  the  beautiful,  realism  runs  readily  into  sen- 
sualism  or  vulgar  materialism.  The  obscene  art  of  Japan  is 
inconceivably  monstrous,  and  betrays  a  liking  for  the  absolute  in 
vice,  such  as  no  European  nation  would  outwardly  tolerate. 
But  the  domestic  habits  make  modesty  impossible.  Hence  artists 
depict  indecencies  in  a  matter-of-fact  style,  with  the  unreserve 
that  attends  the  habits  of  animals.  What  is  so  common  seems 
to  carry  with  it  no  special  pollution,  as  with  peoples  of  nicer 


228 


JAPANESE  SENSUALISM. 


customs  and  purer  moral  sense.  Oksai  shows  Japanese  ladies 
inflicting  a  punishment  on  unresisting  menials  such  as  would 
not  be  conceived  by  an  European  imagination,  assuredly  not 
submitted  to  by  the  vilest  person.  How  can  personal  delicacy 
be  developed  where  prostitution  is  an  honorable  profession, 
the  portraits  of  famous  courtesans  hung  in  religious  temples, 
and  shamefacedness  unknown.  Esthetic  sensualism  and  vul- 
garism do  infinite  harm  in  Christian  communities,  for  there  ex- 
ists a  public  sentiment  capable  of  being  debauched  and  degraded. 
But  in  the  East,  where  it  is  already  in  its  lowest  level,  there  is 
no  further  depth  for  it.  An  acute  capacity  of  sensuousness  on 
the  sensual  side,  joined  to  a  perverse  desire  to  taste  fruit  forbid- 
den by  the  gods,  is  essential  to  entire  corruption  of  heart.  This 
is  what  classic  art  finally  came  to,  and  what  French  art  in  part 
threatens  to  become.  The  sin  of  these  peoples  is  wilful  be- 
cause, knowing  purity  and  truth,  they  select  the  vicious  and  un- 
true ;  while  much  of  Japanese  want  of  modest  disguise  has  its 
origin  in  not  seeing  their  own  nakedness,  and  an  insufiicient 
standard  of  home  refinements,  which  have  not  radically  emerged 
from  the  habits  engendered  by  their  primitive  nomad  life.  Both 
Oksai  and  Boun-Tiyo,  in  all  their  works  that  I  have  seen,  avoid 
the  voluptuous  or  directly  immoral.  Japanese  grossness  is  un- 
gilded,  and  consists  rather  in  the  choice  of  certain  motives  not 
so  improper  in  themselves  as  unsuited  to  art.  The  chief  ethical 
defect  is  levity  and  want  of  conscience.  There  is  no  tenderness 
or  philanthropy.  Suffering  and  destitution  excite  laughter  more 
than  i^ity.  Life  is  seen  either  through  ludicrous  or  material  spec- 
tacles. Nothing  is  softened  by  idealism,  but  much  is  heightened 
for  drollery.  In  Oksai  there  is  noticeable  an  active  sympathy 
with  the  common  people,  whose  foibles  and  habits  furnish  him 
an  inexhaustible  source  of  pictorial  jokes.  Nowhere  do  I  de- 
tect snobbery  or  conventionality,  certainly  no  predilection  for 
rank,  in  his  many-sided  freebooting  pencil.  Yet  there  is  no 
evidence  of  higher  aim  than  to  entertain  by  recording  the  fleeting 
thought,  or  to  illustrate  the  passing  fact,  unless  it  be  seen  in 
their  bizarre  monsters  that  represent  their  religious  notions,  and 
which  exalt  the  ugly  into  representing  the  supreme  and  appar- 
ently maleficent  power,  that  must  be  propitiated  at  any  cost. 
Without  a  knowledge  of  the  text  that  accompanies  Oksai's  de- 
signs, any  criticism  on  their  real  intent  is  of  necessity  empirical. 
Especially,  the  mystical  or  sacred  art  remains  an  enigma.  Its 
aspect  on  one  side  is  demoniacal,  materialistic,  and  ascetic,  pro- 


JAPANESE  SUPERNATURALISM. 


229 


lific  of  terror,  abounding  in  visions,  evocations,  and  ghostly  ap- 
paritions. Some  of  the  designs  imply  beholding  spirits,  or  con- 
juring back  the  departed  to  hold  intercourse  with  their  world. 
They  also  have  a  pictorial  way  of  sermonizing  quite  as  telling  as 
any  verbal  heaped-up  agony  of  sinning.  Oksai  gives  two  mad- 
dened gamblers,  unnoticing  above  them  that  the  demon  of  play 
has  spun  a  thick  web,  in  the  centre  of  which  he  sits,  like  a  huge 
spider,  with  enormous  eyes  chucklingly  watching  them,  as  he 
poises  himself  for  the  fatal  spring.  This  design  would  make  an 
excellent  back  to  our  playing-cards.  There  is  a  colored  cut  by 
another  artist,  embodying  the  disastrous  physical  effects  of 
lechery,  that  is  a  sermon  in  little,  but  graphic  enough  to  startle 
the  nerves  of  the  most  thoughtless  sinner.  A  lucid  sense  of 
final  retribution  is  betokened  by  avenging  phantoms,  drawn  from 
their  world  of  shadows,  as  ingeniously  frightful  as  the  worst  night- 
mare could  furnish.  Their  divinities  are  shaped  after  the  images 
of  a  disturbed  imagination  or  incoherency  of  reason.  One  god, 
Quanwero,  enjoys  thirty-six  arms  and  one  hundred  heads.  Jebis, 
the  jolly  fiend  of  the  ocean,  sustained  by  dolphins,  is  represented 
as  if  dancing  the  cancan  on  the  waves.  Although  islanders,  the 
Japanese  show  an  incapacity  of  rendering  the  sea.  They  have 
only  two  sorts  of  quaintly  primitive  tones,  one  for  calm  and  one 
for  storm.  Yet  they  attempt  in  bronze,  not  without  a  hint  of 
success,  to  render  the  toss  and  roll  of  breakers  ;  only  the  crests 
of  the  waves  get  shaped  into  weird-like  claws,  which,  however, 
accord  very  well  with  their  fantastic  effigy  of  Neptune. 

Cheou-lao,  god  of  longevity,  familiarly  called  the  "  Old  Child," 
is  a  favorite  Eastern  divinity.  He  was  born  601  years  b.  c, 
after  eighty-one  years'  pregnancy  of  his  mother,  so  the  myth 
runs.  As  his  venerable  image  shows,  he  was  always  gay, 
living  long  and  jovially,  believing  that  happiness  consists  in 
so  doing,  and  ever  seeking  by  means  of  alchemy  to  find  the 
secret  of  terrestrial  immortality.  Japanese  mythology  is  as 
pantheistic  in  its  ideas  as  the  Grecian,  only,  instead  of  finding 
the  divine  in  beauty,  it  invests  the  creative  and  governing  ele- 
ments of  life  in  fantastic  and  ugly  shapes,  repulsive  to  our  eyes, 
but  which  may  nevertheless  fascinate  those  of  the  devout  Jap- 
anese. 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE  PAINTERS  OF  FRANCE. 

HILE  Italy,  Germany,  and  Flanders  Foreign 
possessed  renowned  schools  of  painters, 
and  which  had  wholly  in  Italy  and  partly  in  the 
other  countries  passed  into  stages  of  decline,  France 
in  common  with  Spain  and  England  had  acquired 
no  European  reputation  in  this  direction.  The  foreign  element 
early  exercised  considerable  influence,  in  the  higher  aspects  a 
controlling  one,  on  French  art.  To  go  back  to  A.  D.  1338-9, 
Simone  Martini,  the  rival  of  Giotto,  was  called  to  Avignon, 
and,  working  there  until  his  death  five  years  later,  inspired 
French  taste  with  a  liking  for  the  loftier  motives  and  broader 
treatment  of  his  native  land.  Previously,  the  degenerate  By- 
zantine models  had  been  popular,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  "  Heures 
de  TEmpereur  Charlemagne"  of  the  Louvre,  A.  d.  780.  This  is 
not  specially  French  work,  but  it  shows  the  condition  of  color 
and  design  at  that  epoch  in  Western  Europe.  It  is  scarcely 
better  than  the  picture-hieroglyphics  on  skins  done  by  Ameri- 
can Indians,  and  betrays  the  final  stages  of  decay  of  an  illustra- 
tive and  decorative  art  of  a  superior  character  which  had  pre- 
ceded it. 

A  little  later,  in  the  MS.  Bible  of  the  Emperor  "  Charles  le 
Chauve,"  a.  d.  850,  there  is  improvement.  The  figures  are  red 
on  blue  ground,  with  superior  action,  and  contours  tolerably  well 
given.  The  "-Breviaire  de  St.  Louis"  is  entirely  Byzantine  in 
treatment.  These  two  works,  and  the  "  Statutes  de  I'Ordre  du 
Saint  Esprit,"  A.  d.  1232,  may  be  seen  in  the  Louvre.  The  last, 
though  stiff"  and  flat  in  its  miniatures,  shows  more  vigorous  color- 
ing and  movement,  and  a  decided  tendency  to  escape  from  By- 
zantine conventionalism  into  a  more  life-like  art. 

Subsequently  we  find  French  illustrative  art  alternately  con- 
trolled by  German  and  Italian  influences,  forming  no  absolute, 
great  school  of  its  own,  though  rich  in  decorative  work,  delicate 
and  brilliant  in  execution,  inclined  to  the  picturesque  in  its  illu- 


FRANCOIS  CLOUET. 


231 


minations  of  manuscripts,  free  and  natural,  equally  removed  from 
the  religious  idealism  of  the  Italian  masters  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  prosaic  literalism  of  the  Germans  on  the  other.  In  the  best 
MSS.  of  the  mediaeval  epoch  may  be  detected  the  germs  of  the 
leading  characteristics  of  subsequent  styles  of  painting.  In 
general,  however,  the  painting  of  this  time  is  of  foreign  stock, 
weakened  in  its  transfer  to  the  soil  of  France.  The  gold  back- 
gromid  pictures  that  exist,  have  few  of  those  strong,  original 
qualities  which  appertain  to  the  contemporary  work  of  the  lead- 
ing schools  across  the  Rhine  and  beyond  the  Alps.  Indeed,  they 
deserve  citation  only  in  justification  of  Francis  I.  and  his  suc- 
cessors, in  summoning  from  Italy,  Da  Vinci,  Andrea  del  Sarto, 
Cellini,  Primaticcio,  and  other  foreigners  to  the  rescue  of  art 
altogether  in  France.  In  a  national  sense  the  results  of  their 
visits  were  nothing.  They  merely  transferred  to  their  foreign 
abode  the  art  of  their  native  land,  adorning  the  country  with  fresh 
and  beautiful  works,  whose  style  and  feeling  were  imported  from 
Italy.  Their  transient  example  could  not  renovate  or  recreate 
a  nation's  art.  The  only  credit  due  France  is  for  having  had  the 
good  sense,  when  she  found  herself  lacking,  to  call  in  the  aid  of 
her  more  richly  endowed  neighbors.  That  the  imported  art  did 
not  touch  the  people,  and  stimulate  them  to  work  out  something 
in  their  own  way  appertaining  to  their  own  lives  and  thoughts, 
was  owing  to  the  one-sided  spirit  which  characterized  the  pro- 
ceeding. It  was  not  intended  to  benefit  the  people,  but  simply 
to  gratify  aristocratic  taste,  glorify  the  king,  adorn  his  palaces, 
beautify  his  court,  and  so,  by  means  of  a  magnificent  art,  to 
widen  still  more  the  great  gulf  between  the  ruler  and  the  ruled. 
The  Medicean  graft  of  bad  blood  was  an  exotic  like  the  sensuous 
art  it  sought  to  nationalize  in  France,  and  neither  succeeded  in 
becoming  French. 

Fran9ois  Clouet,  born  at  Tours  A.  d.  1500,  and 
who  lived  to  be  seventy-five,  is  the  first  French  mas-  ciaude. 
ter  of  other  than  local  celebrity.    Yet  his  reputation  is  Le  Sueur. 
based  on  a  limited  foundation,  few  genuine  pictures  of  his,  and 
these  portraits,  being  known.    His  father  being  a  German, 
Clouet's  style  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  grand  Italian 
then  in  vogue,  but  is  derived  from  the  school  of  Holbein,  but 
far  inferior  in  breadth,  dignity,  and  profundity  to  that  power- 
ful master.     Clouet's  manner  is  dry  and  hard.     Great  pre- 
cision is  given  to  details,  and  strict  attention  to  design.  We 
find,  also,  a  spirituel  apprehension  of  character  and  taste  in 


232 


JEAN  COUSIN. 


arrangement  which  more  particularly  belong  to  French  art. 
These  qualities  alone  connect  Clouet  with  .the  national  school. 
His  scholars  are  mere  formalists,  firm  and  fine  in  finish,  which 
is  their  great  aim,  but  wanting  in  that  subtle  mental  discrimina- 
tion which  gives  intellectual  vitality  to  the  master's  elaborate 
brush-work. 

Jean  Cousin,  a  contemporary,  makes  but  a  sorry  figure  as  an 
artist  in  his  fantastic,  panoramic  "  Last  Judgment,"  in  the 
Louvre.  It  is  the  usual  turmoil  of  material  horrors,  destitute 
of  those  grander  qualities  of  the  Italian  masters,  which  partially 
elevate  the  spectacle  above  the  level  of  an  exhibition  of  lustful 
vengeance  and  demoniacal  wrath. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  names  which  local  pride  alone 
exalts  to  the  rank  of  great  artists.  My  purpose  is  to  inquire 
how  far  the  works  of  later  men,  of  wider  fame,  merit  the  esteem 
awarded  them  by  national  partiality. 

To  facilitate  inquiry,  let  us  group  artists  according  to  their 
political  eras,  selecting  conspicuous  examples  of  each.  This 
compels  generalization,  with  its  sins  of  omission  and  want  of 
exact  individual  specification,  but  in  the  main  it  will  be  just. 
The  world  at  large  has  only  time  to  deal  with  general  results. 
To  do  complete  justice  to  every  artist  would  require  volumes 
instead  of  pages  of  criticism.  With  few  exceptions  in  any 
school,  there  does  not  exist  sufficient  public  interest  in  their 
works  to  justify  a  very  particular  investigation.  But  a  verdict 
as  a  whole  is  needed,  giving  to  each  distinguished  master  his 
proper  position  while  holding  him  responsible  for  the  uses  of 
his  gifts. 

Three  names  dominate  in  the  17th  century —  Claude  Lorraine, 
Nicholas  Poussin,  and  Eustache  le  Sueur.  The  first  two,  in 
their  departments,  are  representative  men  of  universal  reputa- 
tion. Le  Sueur  is  not  much  known  out  of  his  native  land. 
These  painters  are  the  foremost  examples  of  the  French  school. 
In  citing  them,  however,  everything  is  given  to  the  accident  of 
birth,  and  nothing  allowed  to  the  actual  training  and  career, 
which,  in  the  instances  of  Claude  and  Poussin,  were  Italian, 
both  dying  in  Rome,  where  they  had  lived  and  studied  during 
most  of  their  lives.  Neither  can  be  called  Fiench  in  their  art 
any  more  than  West,  Copley,  or  Leslie  can  be  claimed  for  the 
American  school.  The  nationality  of  an  artist  needs  be  con- 
sidered in  an  investigation  of  his  art  only  so  far  as  the  qualities 
of  race  are  manifested  in  his  works.    Every  country  is  prone  to 


NICHOLAS  POUSSIN. 


233 


arrogate  to  itself  the  reflection  of  greatness  of  genius  born  on 
its  soil,  although  it  may  have  despised  or  persecuted  it  when 
living,  or  driven  it,  as  Florence  did  Dante,  elsewhere  for  liberty 
to  grow.  The  true  country  of  any  one  is  that  which  gives  him 
the  fullest  freedom  to  assert  his  entire  humanity  ;  which  fosters, 
inspires,  trains,  and  maiies  him  a  complete  man  ;  which  he  elects 
as  most  completely  fulfilling  his  aspirations  in  life,  and  whose 
life  he  most  reflects  in  his  own.  Undoubtedly  blood  affects  char- 
acter, but  its  influence  is  secondary  to  those  conditions  chosen 
by  the  individual  himself  for  his  mature  development. 

Le  Sueur's  art-education,  although  acquired  in  France,  was  as 
really  foreign  in  its  sources  as  that  of  his  distinguished  contem- 
poraries, but  his  decorative  style  is  .  characteristic  of  his  origin. 
It  is  inaccurate  at  this  epoch  to  speak  of  French  painting  in  an 
absolutely  national  sense,  as  in  the  cases  of  Spain,  Italy,  and 
Germany,  because  the  France  of  the  17th  century,  as  in  the 
16th,  had  nothing  to  distinguish  her  among  nations,  except  what 
foreigners  brought  to  her,  or  was  borrowed  from  other  countries 
by  her  eclectic  artists,  and  not  yet  fully  assimilated  into  a  strictly 
indigenous  school  of  art.  For  some  time  yet,  we  must  discrimi- 
nate between  adopted  and  native  art. 

Poussin,  the  French  Raphael,  as  he  has  been  called,  was 
born  A.  D.  1594,  and  labored  prolifically  until  a.  d.  1665. 
Has  he  those  eminent  qualities  claimed  by  his  countrymen  ?  I 
fail  to  see  in  him  anything  great,  original,  or  emphatic,  either  in 
thought,  design,  or  color.  Of  all  distinguished  artists,  he  is  one 
the  most  made  up  from  others  ;  a  learned,  skilful  eclectic,  who 
adds  nothing  original  or  great  to  art.  If  all  he  ever  did  were 
destroyed,  it  would  be  no  loss,  because  painting  would  still  re- 
tain in  others,  in  a  higher  degree,  every  excellence  to  be  found 
in  him.  His  numerous  works  are  washy  in  substance,  weak  or 
second-hand  in  thought,  and  often  hasty  and  careless  in  execu- 
tion, especially  in  draperies.  The  types  of  his  figures  are  monot- 
onously uniform,  and  want  character.  His  chief  actors  have  a 
tendency  to  grimace  in  lieu  of  expressing  passion  or  thought. 
The  more  elevated  his  personages,  the  more  absurd  or  feeble 
they  are  apt  to  appear,  his  paintings  in  this  respect  being  worse 
than  his  designs.  Look  at  Nos.  422  and  427  of  the  Louvre, 
the  "  Judgment  of  Solomon"  and  the  "Adulterous  Woman,"  as 
illustrations.  The  Saviour  is  inane  to  the  last  degree.  Regard 
for  a  climax  his  masterpiece.  No.  434,  "  Raising  the  Eyes  to  the 
Almighty,"  a  figure  which  makes  the  rudest  Byzantine  work  in 


234 


NICHOLAS  POUSSIN. 


the  same  vein  seem  grand  in  comparison.  Poussin's  "  Ancient  of 
Days  "  is  a  curly -headed  vaporous  dandy  in  dishabille,  attended 
by  frisky  angels  in  keeping  with  his  drawing-room  graces ;  as 
an  example  of  the  meretricious,  academic-pretty,  it  is  a  well- 
balanced  composition,  with  graceful  languidness  of  pose,  some 
force  of  expression,  but  as  empty  of  thought  as  a  gourd.  There 
is  no  reserved  emotion  or  suggestion.  The  coloring  is  thin 
and  impoverished.  Yet  technical  qualities  appear  to  be  the 
artist's  highest  aim.  Blind  to  defects  of  their  favorites,  the 
authorities  of  the  Louvre  place  this  picture,  a  "  Descent  of  the 
Cross  "  by  Jouvenet,  a  clever  translation  in  French  of  Rubens* 
vigorous  materialism,  and  the  feeble  phantoms  of  Le  Sueur,  in 
the  position  of  honor  in  the  famous  Salon,  putting  them  in 
direct  competition  with  the  finest  Titians,  Veronese,  Correggios, 
Raphaels,  Leonardos,  Murillos,  Vandykes,  and  Rubenses,  provok- 
ing comparisons  which  make  the  French  masters  appear  more 
insignificant  than  they  really  are ;  an  injustice  happily  not  re- 
peated with  their  later  and  stronger  men. 

Poussin's  Virgin,  in  his  "  Holy  Family  "  No.  424,  is  a  milk- 
maid ;  true  feeling  being  sacrified  to  plagiarism  and  the  conven- 
tionalisms of  composition.  Both  in  classical  or  Scriptural  sub- 
jects there  is  a  want  of  individuality  in  his  personages.  Like 
actors,  they  can  change  characters  as  easily  as  their  costumes. 
His  coloring  is  cold,  monotonous,  and  conventional.  Poussin 
toils  after  graceful  and  well-balanced  compositions,  careful  to 
avoid  any  solecism  of  taste  as  decided  by  academic  rule.  He 
is  always  the  fine  gentleman  in  art;  pleasing  on  superficial 
view,  accomplished,  well  instructed,  clever  of  hand,  never  vul- 
gar in  manner  or  violent,  ever  self-possessed,  but  emasculated 
of  original  power.  Few  artists  better  appreciate  the  qualities 
of  the  great  masters  of  Greece  and  Italy,  or  more  persistently 
choose  their  themes  from  intellectual  motives  of  a  high  charac- 
ter, irrespective  of  any  ruling  sentiment  of  his  own.  Still  there 
is  no  flow  of  genius  into  him.  He  recasts  old  themes  with  a  cer- 
tain facility  of  expression,  selecting  those  which  best  show  off 
his  academic  culture,  but  soon  reaches  his  limitations  and  is 
great  in  nothing.  Indeed,  he  is  only  the  shadow  of  the  great- 
ness of  others.  Such  feeling  as  can  be  detected  is  for  the 
sensual-classical.  When  most  influenced  by  the  manner  of 
Titian,  he  is  best.  Sacred  compositions  are  dwarfed  into  life- 
less tableaus  or  pictorial  abstractions,  having  no  virtues  except 
of  brush.    His  versatility  appears  to  best  advantage  in  landscape, 


LE  SUEUR. 


235 


from  the  later  Bologuese,  chiefly  Domenichino.  It  gives  a 
poetical,  heroic,  aristocratic  aspect  to  mother  earth,  as  if  it  were 
too  refined  for  rude  labor,  or  savage  life  of  any  sort.  The 
wilderness  is  banished  from  its  polished  surface,  and  everything 
that  offends  aesthetic  repose,  or  suggests  harm,  suffering,  or 
poverty,  is  put  out  of  sight.  In  their  place  we  find  the  elegant, 
serene,  and  graceful ;  a  pleasure-bestowing,  lordly  landscape, 
temple  and  palace-clad,  purged  of  gross  humanity  and  vulgar 
needs;  fitted  up  for  gods,  nymphs,  deified  heroes,  and  a  select 
company  of  mortals.  There  is  nothing  in  this  impossible  ideal 
of  nature  to  love,  or  which  can  benefit  us,  other  than  as  it  re- 
sponds to  an  Arcadian  dream  of  a  golden  future  or  reverie  of  an 
imagined  past.  It  is  the  romantic  outgrowth  of  the  Renaissance 
before  it  changed  from  the  ideal  to  the  natural  view  of  things, 
and  for  more  than  a  century  was  the  supreme  type  of  its  land- 
scape-art, with,  the  exception  now  and  then  of  a  vigorous  revo- 
lutionary protest  from  men  of  the  Salvator  Rosa  stamp. 

The  career  of  Le  Sueur,  born  a.  d.  1617,  dying  a.  d.  1655, 
although  so  much  shorter  than  Poussin's,  was  equally  fertile  in 
the  same  direction.  His  work  is  more  equal  and  more  vapid. 
In  allegory  he  is  refined  and  decorous,  but  wholly  French  in 
his  taste  for  the  decorative.  There  is  no  passion,  depth,  or 
high  intellectual  purpose,  though  some  sentiment.  His  pictures 
are  carefully  studied,  in  color  lively  but  inharmonious,  and  dis- 
play facility  of  design.  He  strains  less  after  epic  grandeur  than 
Poussin.  The  general  impression  is  weakness.  Monotony  of 
expression  and  profiles,  and  absence  of  individuality  are  veiy  ap- 
parent. His  figures  take  the  places  assigned  them,  pose  rightly, 
compose  harmoniously,  but,  with  an  occasional  exception  of  sug- 
gestive action,  do  nothing.  At  first  view  they  excite  expecta- 
tion. We  await  mental  impressions,  and  see  only  attitudes. 
The  net  result  is  soulless  work.  Over-study  of  the  classical- 
statuesque  killed  the  proper  art  of  the  painter  both  in  him  and 
Poussin,  but  the  latter's  more  forcible  efiigies  recall  the  lay- 
figure  of  the  studio,  while  Le  Sueur's  are  but  painted  phantoms. 
In  style  he  is  a  sort  of  religious  Boucher,  striving  for  grace  and 
delicacy,  and  ending  in  the  sacred-pretty.  Like  Poussin  he 
paints  mythological  pictures  with  equal  facility  and  taste  as  those 
of  his  own  creed.  Poussin  drew  his  inspiration  more  directly 
from  the  old  masters  of  Italy  and  Greece.  Le  Sueur's  comes 
strained  through  him.  Both  are  academic  dilutions  of  Raphael. 
They  were  capable  of  receiving  impressions  from  and  appreciat- 


236 


CLAUDE  LORRAINE. 


mg  the  productions  of  those  they  emulated,  even  of  recasting 
their  ideas ;  but  not,  like  Rubens,  who  held  the  same  great  artists 
in  equal  estimation,  of  learning  from  them,  and  by  the  alchemy 
of  their  own  genius  giving  fresh  forms,  thought,  and  style  to 
painting.  The  distance  between  Rubens  and  Poussin  is  the 
exact  measure  between  genius  and  talent.  The  loss  of  the  one 
would  leave  a  chasm  in  art.  The  annihilation  of  the  other, 
and  Le  Sueur  added,  would  cause  no  gap. 

Gellee,  commonly  called  Claude  Lorraine,  was  born  A.  d.  1600, 
and  died  a.  d.  1 682.  He,  too,  was  a  hard  worker.  His  fame  is 
a  popular  one,  because  founded  on  certain  qualities  appreciable 
by  all.  As  an  academician,  his  skill  in  design  and  learning  are 
not  equal  to  his  contemporaries.  Especially  are  his  figures  ill 
drawn,  their  action  spiritless,  and  his  composition  in  general  ex- 
tremely forced  and  conventional.  Truth  of  detail  is  disregarded 
in  his  desire  to  beautifully  render  the  broader  features  of  nature. 
Landscape  then  was  of  the  ideal  sort ;  nature  not  being  studied 
in  a  realistic  light,  but  used  as  an  auxiliary  element  to  be  made 
up  by  studio  rules  into  the  mock  pastoral,  classical,  scriptural,  or 
wild  scenes  which  were  in  fashion.  Rubens,  Velasquez,  and  a 
few  others  may  be  considered  an  exception  to  the  prevailing  fal- 
sification of  the  natural.  They  painted  what  they  saw  in  a 
broad,  vigorous  maimer,  life-like  and  refreshing  ;  and  next  to  the 
magnificent  treatment  of  the  landscape  by  the  great  Venetians 
and  Correggio,  theirs  is  the  truest  up  to  their  time.  Salvator's 
was  a  subjective  art ;  an  infusion  of  his  own  sorrowful  and 
gloomy  temperament,  rejoicing  terribly  in  the  rugged  and  deso- 
late. Nature  to  him  was  dark  and  avenging,  and  her  mysteries 
and  greatness  frightful.  His  own  weird  imagination  gave  it 
final  shape,  and  peopled  it  in  kind,  so  that,  except  to  kindred 
spirits,  there  is  small  satisfaction  to  be  had  in  his  rough  work. 
Not  so  with  Claude.  He  had  no  relish  for  the  forcible,  quaint, 
or  terrible.  There  was  nothing  epic  in  his  composition.  His 
atmosphere  was  one  of  peace  and  quietness.  Instead  of  darken- 
ing canvas  with  bitterness,  ferocity,  and  disappointment  of  soul, 
or  peopling  it  out  of  the  wars,  miseries,  or  diabolical  imagery  of 
humanity,  Claude  pipes  joyously  to  the  gay  spirits  of  nature  who 
sing  and  dance  in  the  bright  sunlight  on  verdant  plains,  with 
sparkling  water  and  smiling  hills  in  sympathetic  unison.  There 
is  no  work  in  his  pictures ;  workmen,  sailors,  and  their  like,  it  is 
true,  but  they  are  all  brightly  clad,  and  look  as  if  on  parties 
of  pleasure.    How  he  delights  in  magnificent  architecture  of 


PERIOD  OF  LOUIS  XIV. 


237 


the  impossible  stage-kind !  His  landscapes  are  composed  for 
the  enjoyment  and  repose  of  men.  There  is  no  poverty,  crime, 
or  harshness  where  the  gentle,  sensuous  Claude  lives.  Nymphs, 
maidens,  and  ladies  are  safe  there ;  the  serene  sky  above  and 
genial  air  about  them  suggesting  the  protection  of  the  unseen 
guardians  of  nature.  But  the  great  debt  we  owe  to  Claude  is 
his  quality  of  light.  As  no  man  before  him  had  done  and  none 
since  surpassed,  he  floods  his  pictures  with  it  warm  and  tremu- 
lous, giving  infinite  space  and  a  breathable  atmosphere  to  dis- 
tances whose  horizons  recede  always.  Sunlight  under  his  hand 
gleams,  quivers,  and  mystifies.  The  cool,  gray  awakening  of 
misty  mornings  rising  over  broad  plains  and  far-off  mountains, 
miles  of  space  on  inches  of  canvas,  leading  the  eye  by  gradations 
of  tone  into  hidden  distances,  the  very  poetry  of  light,  he  was 
equally  felicitously  facile  in  treating,  with  the  rich,  burning 
effects  of  noontide  sun,  or  as  it  set  in  its  golden  heat. 

It  is  much  to  have  done  this,  not  merely  for  its  own  triumph, 
but  for  the  standard  of  excellence  it  established.  All  that  we 
have  had  excellent  in  kind  ever  since  has  been  fostered  by  it. 
But,  greatest  obligation  of  all,  it  stimulated  Turner  to  work 
out  his  miraculous  atmospherical  scenery.  Claude's  range  was 
limited,  though  complete  within  its  compass.  His  aff*ectations 
and  weaknesses  were  those  of  his  time  ;  his  enchanting  qualities 
came  of  himself,  not  spontaneous,  but  slowly,  after  patient  years 
of  observation  and  trial.  Claude  dead  to  art,  and  it  would 
have  a  long  step  in  progress  to  make  over  again.  His  example 
is  the  more  valuable  for  showing  how  much  one  sincere  worker, 
following  the  bent  of  his  own  talents,  and  limiting  himself  to 
their  possibilities,  may  do  for  his  profession,  instead  of  surrender- 
ing himself,  body  and  soul,  to  the  influences  of  others  whose 
excellences  are  not  to  be  rivalled  by  any  fervor  of  imitation,  as 
did  Poussin  and  Le  Sueur. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  trace  particularly  the  course  period  of 
of  academic  painting  through  the  long  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.,  having  its  fountain-head  in  the  art  of  Italy  in  its  deca- 
dence, and  repeating  itself  within  a  prescribed  circle  with  varied 
technical  merit,  but  uniform  want  of  true  feeling,  because  with 
but  unimportant  variations  we  should  find  the  same  general 
features,  inferior  rather  than  superior  in  the  artists  that  follow, 
many  of  whom  were  trained  in  the  studios  of  Poussin  and  Le 
Sueur.  Valentin,  who  somewhat  anticipates  this  period,  is  a 
heavy,  dull  imitator  of  Carravaggio.    Sebastien  Bourdon  is 


238 


PIERRE  MIGNARD. 


serious  in  style,  but  neither  his  example,  Jouvenefs,  nor  any 
other's  of  the  makers  of  big  sacred  pictures  with  which  the 
Louvre  is  crowded,  down  to  the  time  of  Sigalon,  prove  anything 
except  the  incapacity  of  the  French  school  to  deal  with  spiritual 
topics.  They  had  not  acquired  the  talent  of  our  time  of  present- 
ing a  vivid  spectacle  of  a  given,  subject  in  its  proper  local  aspect. 
Instead,  we  have  immense  canvases  crowded  with  studio-figures 
put  together  into  confused  compositions  coarsely  conceived  and 
treated ;  valueless  as  art  and  something  worse  as  religion. 
"Where  all  is  bad,  it  is  difficult  to  pillory  one  as  an  example. 
But  the  "  Vision  of  St.  Jerome,"  by  Sigalon,  may  be  worthy  of 
this  distinction.  One  might  conceive  of  such  a  painting  done  by 
a  mad  Michael  Angelo,  of  whose  style  it  is  a  raving  grimace  as 
well  as  a  painful  satire  on  things  sacred.  There  is  notliing, 
indeed,  elevated  in  French  art  from  that  day  until  our  own 
time.  If  there  be  any  wholesome  aesthetic  nutriment  or  men- 
tal value  in  the  canvases  of  Le  Brun  and  the  rest  of  the 
courtly  painters  of  the  Louis  XIV.  period,  I  fail  to  detect  it. 

Pierre  Mignard,  A.  d.  1610  to  1695,  is  the  chief,  and  excels 
the  others  in  coloring.  He  is  a  fit  representative  of  that  epoch 
whose  highest  motives  in  art  were  in  pandering  to  the  tastes  of 
a  monarch  who  thought  to  deify  kingcraft  by  ignoble  exactions 
of  humanity,  making  it  a  low  and  contemptible  thing,  and  by 
exalting  puerile  fooleries  and  vulgar  necessities  into  state  cere- 
monies. Whatever  was  true  and  good  in  man,  this  ruler  tried 
to  corrupt  and  pervert.  That  art  was  most  worthy  which  to 
his  blinded  vision  most  completely  represented  the  utter  human 
sham  that  he  was.  They  painted  him  a  god,  and  he  believed  it. 
Rubens  did  a  vast  deal  of  this  sort  of  lying  in  his  day ;  but  it 
was  so  bravely  done,  and  withal  a  touch  of  satire  in  it,  that  he 
is  to  be  forgiven  for  the  very  amplitude  of  his  sinning.  Besides, 
the  world  to  him  was  a  stage,  and  all  men,  high  and  low,  sub- 
jects for  his  inexhaustible  brush.  But  the  men  who  painted  for 
Louis  XIV.  gave  themselves  up  wholly  to  his  monstrous  vanity, 
believing  with  his  eyes  that  the  ridiculous  and  preposterous 
were  indeed  the  beautiful  and  sublime.  Rightly  is  the  art  of 
this  period  known  by  his  name.  He  was  the  author,  by  means 
of  his  favorite  Lenotre,  of  that  taste  which,  by  the  shears  of 
barber,  did  for  vegetation  what  the  last  named  individual  did  for 
him  ;  that  is,  made  it  look  as  unnatural  and  absurd  as  possible. 
That  nature  even  should  be  allowed  to  grow  as  God  designed, 
was  treason.     So  he  clipped,  and  trimmed,  and  squared,  and 


EPOCH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


239 


stunted  it,  until  all  notion  of  the  natural  and  true  was  lost 
to  French  taste.  Even  classical  statues  were  subjected  to  the 
same  stupendous  wigs  that  disfigured  himself.  The  style  of 
the  "  perruquier  "  being  supreme,  the  bizarre  became  the  divine 
principle.  Architecture  and  sculpture  suffered  equally  at  his 
hands.  He  made  of  the  Renaissance  an  abortion,  and  perverted 
the  Gothic  into  utter  nonsense.  When  an  absolute  will  over- 
shadows the  entire  intellect  of  a  country,  giving  to  all  things 
one  hue  and  tone,  it  is  difficult  to  fully  take  in  all  the  harm 
done.  But  after  time  has  stripped  off  the  tinsel,  the  naked 
image  of  irresponsible  power  is  disclosed  in  its  loathsome  mag- 
nitude. It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  Louis  XIV.  retarded  art, 
but  he  poisoned  it  and  perverted  its  functions,  as  he  did  every- 
thing else  he  meddled  with.  France  has  not  yet  been  able  to 
wholly  eliminate  the  virus  he  injected  into  her  organic  life.  In 
judging  of  art,  we  have  to  keep  in  view  its  inherited  obstacles 
to  a  healthful  development.  Even  now,  there  is  need  to  caution 
the  novice  against  the  sensual  seductions  and  pompous  preten- 
sions of  an  epoch  which  gloried  in  its  shame,  preferred  falsehood 
to  truth,  meanness  to  manliness,  in  fine  travestied  humanity  as 
only  a  "  great  monarch "  could.  Pass  it  by.  To  obliterate 
it,  would  be  to  merit  well  of  the  world.  If  it  must  be  looked 
at,  let  it  be  in  humiliation  and  sorrow  in  witnessing  how  mean 
human  natui  e  can  become. 

There  is  at  first  a  feeling  almost  of  relief  in  turn-  -^pg^,^ 
inoj  to  the  art  of  Louis  XV.  But  the  final  chano-e  -^""'^  ^  ^- 
is  from  what  is  self-des^rading  to  the  diso-ustino;.  Lascivious 
wantonness  comes  upon  the  scene.  Meretricious  effeminacy 
takes  the  place  of  studied  pride.  Kingcraft  foregoes  blasphe- 
mous masquerading,  and  takes  to  sinning  in  the  open  air  like 
the  lowest  of  mortals,  exposing  its  concupiscence  and  shameless- 
ness  to  whomsoever  chooses  to  gaze  at  them.  Pleasure  was  the 
motto.  The  laugh,  the  jest,  to  find  fresh  daily  food  for  wanton 
desires,  to  parade  vice,  to  jeer  at  wisdom,  to  scout  at  the  end, 
"  after  me  the  flood  ; "  of  such  was  the  new  spirit  in  art,  forming 
the  first  genuine  French  school,  because  springing  from  the  dom- 
inant aristocratic  tastes  of  the  nation  which  were  then  the  only 
ones  recognized,  the  people  still  being  an  unknown  quantity  in 
politics  and  art.  Nothing  great  now,  nothing  elevated,  nothing 
pure,  nothing  deep  except  sin,  nothing  broad  except  efirontery. 
Taste  in  art  from  being  degraded  became  depraved,  vibrating  be- 
tween the  extremes  of  the  sentimental-pretty  and  the  grossly  sen- 


240 


EPOCH  OF  LOUIS  XV. 


siial.  Cooks,  barbers,  dancing-masters,  were  privileged  artists. 
Purveyors  of  "  little  pleasures  "  —  in  plain  English,  pimps,  prod- 
igal prostitutes,  scented  abbes,  and  their  tribe  —  inspired  an  art 
whose  highest  efforts  were  given  to  snuff-boxes,  porcelain  toys, 
and  the  florid  ornamentation  of  furniture  and  salons  in  accordance 
with  the  Pompadour  taste,  the  Du  Barry  choice,  or  the  Louis  XV. 
dictation.  Much  was  invented  that  was  pretty  and  graceful. 
Small  arts  flourished  like  rank  weeds.  But  adornment  should  be 
appropriate  to  the  use  and  created  with  honest  motive.  In  the 
present  instance,  the  sources  of  inspiration  being  foul,  the  little 
arts  were  in  the  main  pernicious,  pandering  to  vanities,  frivoli- 
ties, and  lusts,  and  obscuring  noble  effort.  The  dubious  melange 
of  objects  thus  generated,  constructively  fine,  —  for  good  work- 
manship was  the  rule,  —  now  known  by  the  expressive  term 
rococo,  was  in  the  mass  worthless  as  art  and  thought.  We  may 
safely  accept  it  as  a  general  truth  that  there  is  an  evil  and  false 
element  in  everything  of  that  nature.  Instead  of  imitating  it 
in  our  furniture,  upholstery,  and  decorations,  we  should  instinct- 
ively shun  it  because  of  its  impure  origin.  Great  harm  to  the 
public  mind  has  come  of  it,  and  its  influence  is  still  perceptible 
in  this  century. 

The  duty  of  grand  art  in  the  preceding  reign  was  to  celebrate 
the  battles  of  the  king,  to  adorn  him,  to  magnify  the  great 
human  carbuncle  that  he  was  into  a  beperiwigged  Jupiter.  Our 
modern  Olympian,  "by  the  grace  of  God,"  makes  at  the  best 
but  a  sorry  exhibition  in  his  state  trumpery.  He  got  himself 
up  as  the  image  of  omnipotent  tyranny,  forcing  art  to  administer 
its  needed  artifices.  The  people  do  right  to  scoff  at  the  pro- 
digious show.  In  his  day,  however,  it  was  an  earnest,  serious 
tyranny.  The  crime  of  treason  was  in  an  unbelieving  look  or 
a  chance  word.  As  bad  as  the  spirit  of  the  art  then  was,  in  which 
it  was  upheld  by  what  was  called  religion,  it  had  the  merit  of 
sincerity  in  execution.  Evidently  the  reward  of  the  obedient 
was  ever  before  its  eyes,  until  it  came  at  last  to  have  faith 
in  its  own  panderings  to  royalty  as  the  right  way  of  art. 
Louis  XY.,  however,  tempered  his  tyranny  with  the  license  of 
pleasure  and  the  scoffings  of  unbelief.  His  predecessor  made  a 
pretence  of  the  name  of  the  Lord  for  his  acts  ;  but  the  fifteenth 
Bourbon  came  out  squarely  for  the  Devil.  The  hypocrisy  of  the 
one  and  the  openness  of  the  other  king  are  the  sounding-notes 
of  their  respective  ftishions  in  art.  If  the  mistress  of  the  first 
must  appear  demurely  pious  in  his  old  age,  the  harlot  of  the 


VANLOO  AND  BOUCHER. 


241 


second  rollicked  openly  before  the  people.  He  was  too  obtuse 
to  their  existence  to  take  into  consideration  their  opinions  ;  con- 
sequently he  did  not  require  of  art  that  it  should  fortify  his 
tyranny,  but  that  it  should  sacrifice  to  his  carnal  desires.  True 
he  did  not  much  need  to  recreate  the  former  service,  as  his  pred- 
ecessor had  reduced  it  to  an  organized  system  of  ceremonies 
and  spectacles  that,  once  begun,  went  on  themselves  by  mere 
force  of  routine  and  vested  self-interests.  They  were,  however, 
no  longer  a  worship,  only  a  habit  of  royalty.  In  the  license 
of  a  pleasure-loving  act,  the  national  instincts  for  the  gay,  grace- 
ful and  pretty,  and  the  spirituel  came  lightly  to  the  surface,  but 
devoted  to  the  inclinations  of  the  ruler  who  had  given  it  liberty. 
Its  chief  delight  was  in  the  mere  frippery  of  ornament,  to  which 
was  added  a  taste  for  the  Oriental  monstrous  and  grotesque^ 
betokening  an  unwholesome  love  for  things  impure,  unnatural 
and  unbeautiful,  or  sentimental-decorative  ruled  by  the  caprices 
of  fashion.  The  Vanloos,  Watteau,  and  Boucher  are  fitting 
representatives  of  the  frivolous,  sensuous  art  of  this  period. 
Their  finest  work  was  given  to  fans,  coaches,  and  cabinets  for 
salons.  They  aspired  to  be  always  charming,  in  the  natural 
sense  of  this  word.  Inventive  and  industrious,  they  deluged 
France  with  sense-seducing  art,  undertaking  every  sort  of  com- 
mission with  equal  levity  of  purpose  and  aptness  of  hand.  Re- 
ligious and  classical  subjects  were  intermingled  with  sensual 
and  wicked.  They  decorated  theatres,  salons,  and  made  de- 
signs for  tapestries.  Figure- work,  landscape,  animals,  fantastics, 
everything  fashion  craved,  they  were  prompt  to  execute,  and  with 
uniform  results  so  far  as  the  defilement  of  noble  art  was  in- 
volved. 

As  colorists  they  are  monotonously  thin  and  feeble,  vanioo. 
something  of  a  sparkle  perhaps  to  Vanioo, but  paleness  oTdfy^' 
is  common  to  all.    Boucher's  greens  and  blues  look  Desportes. 
as  if  they  had  fainted,  while  his  rosy  tints,  on  which  he  relies 
for  attractiveness,  have  the  value  of  pink  ribbons.    His  vegeta- 
tion is  an  ethereal  substance,  with  a  general  tone  of  confectionary 
surface-color.    He  holds  landscapes  to  be  made  for  powdered, 
perruqued,  and  hooped  belles  and  beaux  to  fancy  themselves 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses  in.    Its  choicest  nooks  are  re- 
served for  the  display  of  well-turned  legs  and  delicately  tinted 
bosoms  with  men  gazing  appetizingly  thereon,  or  for  nudity 
made  unchaste  by  debauchery  of  intent  and  sensual  disorder  of 
drapery     Frenchmen  rarely  paint  unadorned  obscenity,  as  did 
16 


242 


OUDRY  AND  GREUZE. 


the  Dutch  and  Flemish  artists,  but  insidiously  suggest  it.  They 
are  too^  polite  a  race  for  unmitigated  grossness.  Watteaii's  faces 
of  men  and  women  are  the  same  for  all  his  personages ;  his 
characterization  being  exhausted  on  limbs  and  attitudes. 

Cruelty  and  sensuality  being  closely  related,  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  the  animal-painters  of  the  epoch  exhibit  the  fiercest 
instincts  of  their  subjects.  Painful  as  must  be  much  of  their 
iwt  to  a  humane  person,  still  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
Oudry  and  Desportes  paint  real  dogs,  such  dogs  as  Landseer 
never  has  given ;  with  bone,  muscle,  action  ;  canine  instincts 
dominating,  not  a  mere  show  of  dumb  skins  or  sentimental 
effigies.  They  hunt,  pant,  growl,  bark,  tear  their  game  with 
remorseless  grip,  behaving  like  dogs  in  every  respect  that  obey 
the  brutal  wills  of  vulgar-hearted  masters.  Aristocratic  dogs, 
too,  well  kept  and  skilfully  trained,  like  their  owners  despising 
poverty,  and  nothing  loath  to  rend  it  for  the  fun  of  the  thing. 
Unlike  Boucher's  and  Watteau's  human  stock,  they  are  solidly 
painted,  mean  work,  and  are  put  into  landscapes  that  have  some 
semblance  of  realism,  although  flat  in  color,  and  coarse  in  feel- 
ing. Veronese  and  Rubens  paint  a  higher  style  of  brutes  in 
a  few,  broad,  effective  sweeps  of  the  brush,  giving  the  ideal  dog, 
whose  beauty  and  character  attach  man  to  him.  On  the  lower 
plane  of  animal  nature  which  Oudry  and  Desportes  adopt,  there  is 
no  work  that  surpasses  theirs.  It  is  a  rude,  healthful  tonic,  in 
contrast  with  the  effeminate  art  of  their  brethren.  Whatever  is 
sanguinary  is  rendered  literally  and  forcibly  ;  but  there  is  no  ex- 
aggeration of  torture  and  indulgence  in  the  ghastly  and  disagree- 
able for  their  own  sakes,  as  is  to  be  seen  in  Salvatoresque  battle- 
pieces. 

Two  painters  relieve  the  general  depravity  and  worthlessness 
of  this  time,  Joseph  Vernet  and  Jean  Baptiste  Greuze ;  each 
of  whom,  though  widely  apart  in  styles  and  motives  is  distinctly 
French.  Honest  Vernet,  painting  the  landscape  as  he  actually 
saw  it  whenever  he  was  sufficiently  himself  to  shake  off  the 
mingled  Claudesque  and  Salvatoresque  influences  which  at  first 
hampered  him,  is  a  man  to  be  prized  in  his  generation.  No 
silly  pastoralism,  or  voluptuous  sentimentalism,  or  nonsense  of 
any  sort  adulterated  his  manner.  He  was  destitute  of  imagina- 
tion, and  so  had  no  dubious  fancies  to  cast  out  of  a  teeming 
brain.  Even  the  spirituel  apprehension  of  his  race  was  wanting. 
Vernet  painted  his  southern  climes  in  a  truthful,  prosaic  way, 
making  a  pictorial  record  in  the  simplest  language,  without  any 


JOSEPH  VERNET. 


243 


hidden  sense  or  Turnerian  involvement  of  form  and  hue.  A 
matter-of-fact  man,  viewing  everything  with  a  child's  literal  eye- 
siglit,  his  art  is  wholly  of  the  material  senses.  He  loves  the  sea, 
sky,  and  shore  with  sailor-like  heartiness.  We  get  from  him 
liglit,  atmosphere,  breeze,  vigor,  description,  topographical  truth, 
and  the  day's  doings.  His  series  of  southern  cities  in  this  as- 
pect are  interesting.  Claude's  and  Salvator's  scenes,  being  com- 
positions, give  no  local  truth,  and  gratify  only  the  ideal  and 
ggsthetic  faculties.  Vernet's  proficiency  in  copying  is  almost 
Chinese.  We  are  sure  that  the  houses,  vessels,  boats,  costumes, 
and  people  are  as  rigidly  like  the  originals  as  a  clear  eye  and 
a  conscientious  pencil  can  make  them.  On  that  Marseilles  quay 
there  are  now  at  work  the  same  persons  on  the  same  bales  of 
merchandise,  true  to  their  marks  and  numbers,  —  business  like 
for  all  time,  —  that  he  saw  on  the  bright,  breezy  Mediterranean 
morning  of  A.  D.  1754,  when  he  carefully  noted  them  down, 
and  put  the  whole  life  before  him  into  a  vigorous  picture.  This 
is  not  great  art,  but  it  is  useful  work.  His  coloring  is  neither 
trickish  nor  feeble.  He  succeeds  in  getting  the  local  colors  into 
his  panoramic  pictures  fresh  and  true,  careless  of  other  qualities 
or  aims.  It  would  have  been  better  for  the  French  school  at 
this  period  if  it  had  more  scholars  as  honest  and  earnest  as 
Joseph  Vernet. 

Greuze  is  not  unlike  him  in  sincerity  and  literalism  of  manner, 
but  is  of  a  different  intellectual  calibre.  His  style  owes  but 
little  to  color,  being  cold  and  disagreeable  in  tone  and  superficial 
in  texture,  except  in  flesh-tints,  which  although  slight  are  deli- 
cate, transparent,  and  tender,  marking  a  success  where  Boucher 
fails.  The  design  is  vigorous,  and  fancy  graceful.  Character  is, 
however,  his  strong  point.  In  this  he  has  dramatic  force.  Of  his 
ready  talent  of  composition,  the  "  Malediction  "  and  "  Son  Pun- 
ished "  in  the  Louvre  are  pertinent  examples.  But  in  general  his 
inclination  is  rather  for  the  sensuous  and  coquettish  ;  the  charmant 
of  his  school,  with  no  particular  scruples  of  purity  or  desire  for 
intellectual  expression.  The  "  Broken  Pitcher,"  is  the  favorite 
specimen  of  his  pretty  manner.  A  few  clever  genre  pictures, 
not  as  much  esteemed  in  their  day  as  they  deserved  to  be,  now 
cause  him  to  be  ranked  as  a  great  master  by  his  countrymen, 
while  fashion  of  late  has  pushed  prices  for  even  his  common 
productions  to  a  point  not  often  attained  by  the  greatest  genius  ; 
a  simple  vaporous  head  of  his,  of  no  especial  meaning,  having 
sold  for  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand  francs. 


244 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  DAVID. 


,"VVe  now  arrive  at  a  new  phase  of  French  painting.  The 
sway  of  royal  mistresses  ending  in  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI. 
gives  way  to  the  retributions  of  the  Revolution,  and  art  transforms 
The  art  of  itself  with  the  times.  Having  administered  to  the 
tioiu^^°^"'  pride  of  one  king  and  the  sensuality  of  another,  it 
now  goes  into  the  hands  of  their  Nemesis,  a  people  excited  by 
tyranny  into  paroxysms  of  progress,  and,  though  possessing  noble 
ideas,  mistaking  their  way  to  liberty.  The  downfall  of  the  Bour- 
bons carried  with  them  their  pernicious  maxim,  "X'^to^,  c'est  moi" 
and  whoever  since  rules  in  their  stead  is  compelled  to  substitute 
the  people  collectively  as  the  synonym  of  political  power.  This 
forward  step,  slight  as  it  actually  is,  has  vastly  changed  and 
widened  the  scope  of  French  art.  At  first  the  people,  or  those 
who  acted  in  the  name  of  the  nation,  sought  patriotic  inspirations 
chiefly  from  examples  of  Roman  history.  Art  in  consequence 
turned  toward  that  source  for  motives  and  subjects.  This  was 
a  fundamental  political  as  well  as  aesthetic  error.  Nothing  per- 
manently good,  and  least  of  all  national,  would  come  of  parody- 
ing the  history  of  an  obsolete  race.  Every  genuine  Gallic  ele- 
ment was  set  aside  by  an  unnatural  admiration  of  the  mythical 
deeds  and  doubtful  virtues  of  the  old  masters  of  Europe,  whose 
political  watchword  was  dominion.  There  being  no  real  appli- 
cability between  the  two  cases,  it  resulted  in  much  harm  to  the 
French  nation.  I  have,  however,  only  to  show  its  effects  on 
art  which  powerfully  reflected  the  revolutionary  fervor  of  the 
people. 

The  classical  school,  so  called,  developed  by  Louis  David,  first 
came  into  the  ascendant ;  not  the  spirit  of  beauty  and  repose 
which  distinguishes  Grecian  art,  but  the  stormier  and  coarser 
features  of  the  Roman  taste  and  history.  Its  leading  character- 
istics were  ambitious  compositions  on  immense  canvases,  great 
energy  of  design,  flaunting  surface-color,  and  theatrical  display. 
History  as  acted  on  the  stage  was  transferred  to  canvas  with 
spectacular  effect,  and  reduced  to  sensational  tableaux,  with  the 
details  of  which  real  history  had  but  little  to  do.  In  this  there 
was  nothing  genuinely  French,  except  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
for  a  while  the  nation  welcomed  this  attempt  to  impose  at  second- 
hand the  ideas  and  manners  of  a  people  that  had  passed  out  of 
living  history,  on  one  for  the  first  time  striving  to  make  a  place  for 
themselves  in  their  own.  But  this  pseudo-classical  furore  soon 
expended  itself,  and  French  nature  came  to  the  surface  again. 

David's  school  was  useful  in  one  respect,  although  false  in  others. 


THE  CHIEF  ARTISTS. 


245 


It  operated  as  a  salutary  tonic  to  arouse  art  from  the  little  and 
mean  into  more  exalted  veins  of  thought,  and  higher  standards 
of  excellence.  It  was  a  generous  attempt  to  found  a  patriotic 
school  of  historical  art  in  a  grand  style,  and,  however  mistaken 
the  performance,  it  let  in  a  purer  atmosphere.  Those  big  pic- 
tures that  nobody  now  looks  at,  were  the  results  of  hard  study, 
fired  by  sympathy  for  human  rights  and  heroic  action.  More 
positive  and  cold  in  color  than  the  antecedent  painting,  exag- 
gerated in  action,  in  motives  forced,  unrealistic  throughout,  they 
were  intended  to  be  epic  poems  on  liberty,  as  sung  by  the 
Revolution,  or  pictorial  harangues  on  themes  born  of  that  great 
human  spasm.  But  they  were  at  bottom  prodigious  shams, 
counterfeiting  virtues  that  did  not  exist  at  heart,  or  by  great 
noise  and  show  disguising  their  absence.  Humanity  could  not 
long  be  taken  in  by  them.  After  a  momentary  excitement  and 
wonder,  they  passed  into  the  category  of  abnormal  art,  never 
more  to  be  mistaken  for  the  genuine.  The  experiment  of  David 
has  guided  the  modern  reproducers  of  history  into  the  right 
direction.  Abandoning  theoretical  ideas,  they  seek  to  illustrate 
and  recreate  it  on  its  own  ground  of  truth  of  scene,  event,  and 
accessories,  and  from  its  own  basis  of  thought  and  feeling.  In- 
stead of  trying  to  make  the  past  talk  the  language  of  our  time, 
they  take  us  back  to  the  old,  and  introduce  us  to  its  actual  life 
and  character. 

The  chief  artists  that  gave  character  to  the  first  Empire 
beside  David,  and  who  may  be  considered  especially  the  expo- 
nents of  the  ideas  and  styles  that  came  in  with  the  Revolution, 
were  G^ricault,  Girodet,  Gros,  Gerard,  Prud'hon,  and  Madame 
Le  Brun.  Their  best  works  have  been  put  by  themselves  into 
one  of  the  great  halls  of  the  Louvre  to  challenge  comparison 
with  the  masterpieces  of  the  Italian,  Flemish,  Spanish,  and  Ger- 
man painters  in  the  neighboring  Salon  Carre.  A  more  unhappy 
position  could  not  have  been  chosen  for  them,  notwithstanding 
the  inharmonious  hanging,  general  confusion  of  styles,  schools, 
motives,  and  too  frequent  bad  condition  of  the  foreign  artists, 
owing  to  the  neglect  or  incompetency  of  those  having  them  in 
charge.  The  French  school  enjoys  the  advantage  of  a  unity 
of  tone  and  ideas,  which  composes  the  mind  of  the  spectator  at 
first  ingress  into  its  hall,  and  predisposes  it  towards  enjoyment. 
This  fails  him  completely  on  entering  the  Salon  Carre  because 
of  the  disturbing  relations  of  the  pictures  themselves.  Their 
finest  qualities  are  not  only  lost  in  the  jarring  propinquity  of 


r 


246 


SALON  CARRE. 


opposite  elements,  but  the  primary  effect  of  them  in  mass  is  to 
bewilder.    Plato  in  a  mob  is  an  ordinary  man.    Solomon  in  an 
assembly  of  kings  loses  his   special  magnificence.    Genius  is 
invisible  in  a  crowd.    So  with  the  masterpieces  of  the  Salon 
Carri.    Entering  it  is  like  stepping  into  a  mob  of  philosophers, 
prophets,  saints,  poets,  emperors,  angels,  satyrs,  and  fnir  and  false 
women  ;  God's  elect  herded  in  a  pen,  labelled  for  show,  and  all 
talking  at  once.    Amid  this  confusion  of  races  and  tongues,  it  re- 
quires strong  self-command  to  select,  comprehend,  and  enjoy  a  pic- 
ture by  itself.    A  sensitive  organ  would  find  an  agony  of  sound  if 
submitted  to  the  music  of  operas,  oratorios,  and  sacred,  profane, 
military,  and  light  compositions  within  one  hall  at  one  time.  It 
is  so  here  to  a  certain  degree  with  the  eye.    Crowded  with  treas- 
ures of  art,  such  is  their  confused  arrangement  and  absence  of 
means  of  quiet  enjoyment  of  each  picture  in  accordance  with  its 
own  proper  character,  that,  until  the  nerves  become  steadied 
and  concentrated,  it  is  a  chamber  of  torment,  instead  of  being  on 
first  view  what  it  easily  might  be  made  to  appear,  the  sanctuary 
of  high  art.    But  compared  with  the  rival  salon  of  the  French 
masters,  it  truly  is  one,  despite  the  great  advantage  of  the  latter 
in  its  unity  of  style  and  feeling.    But  this  unity  condenses  itself 
into  an  impression  of  repulsion,  in  which  disgust  and  horror  are 
equally  balanced  ;  an  impression  which  deepens  with  increasing 
familiarity  with  its  paintings.  Analyze  them,  and  there  is  no  mys- 
tery in  this  effect.    They  are  false  in  character,  coarse  in  expres- 
sion, extravagant  in  action,  when  not  feebly  sentimental,  and  brutal 
in  color.    I  do  not  include  David's  works  in  this  anathema,  their 
points  having  been  already  stated.     Can  any  one  look  at  the 
exhibition  of  physical  suffering  of  Gericault's  "  Wreck  of  the 
Medusa,"  without  having  every  aesthetic  faculty  outraged  ?    If  in- 
tended for  a  scene  in  the  "  Inferno,"  a  raft  of  human  souls  adrift 
on  a  viscious  sea,  it  might  pass.    But  to  call  that  pitchy  slime 
the  ocean  is  a  foul  libel.    It  is  rare  to  find  a  Frenchman  who 
comprehends  at  all  this  part  of  nature.    He  gets  his  idea  of  the 
movements  of  the  sea  from  the  oscillating  canvases  of  theatres, 
Gericault's  atmosphere  is  as  unbreathable  as  his  water  is  un- 
liquid,  while  horror  upon  horror  is  piled  up  in  his  representation 
of  starvation,  until  sympathy  is  overborne  by  the  opposite  emotion. 
His  equestrian  portraits  are  all  fury  and  smoke  ;  impossible  in 
attitude  and  absurd  in  effect ;  realistic  truth  sacrified  to  tours  de 
force. 

Gros's  "  Battle-field  of  Eylau  "  is  in  a  like  view  of  the  exag- 


GIRODET,  PRUD'HON,  GERARD. 


247 


gerated- physical,  a  pictorial  horror,  acceptable  only  to  a  morbid 
appetite  for  the  disagreeable.  The  "  Plague  at  Jaffa  "  is  somewhat 
better,  but  still  making  predominant  the  ghastly  and  appalling. 
It  is  lustreless,  though  strong  in  tint,  with  less  of  the  positively 
ugly  and  coarse  than  in  the  other  painting.  A  lifeless  spectacle, 
it  neither  warms  our  sympathies  nor  elevates  our  sentiments. 
Even  the  action  of  Bonaparte  is  not  made  heroic,  but  simply 
curious,  as  if  he  experimented  on  his  own  courage  rather  than 
sought  by  an  act  of  piety  to  inspire  the  sick  with  hope. 

The  "  Deluge "  of  Girodet  is  an  extraordinary  burlesque,  in 
which  an  impossible  gymnastic  action  is  the  chief  feature.  His 
"  Atala  "  is  weakly  commonplace.  Madame  Le  Brun  sacrifices  to 
the  sentimental-pretty.  Prud'hon  tries  to  translate  Guido  into 
French  studies  of  flying  draperies  and  a  confusion  of  limbs  and 
bodies,  meaningless  so  far  as  the  execution  has  any  connection 
with  the  motive.  Baron  Gerard  essays  the  same  by  Paul 
Veronese  in  Nos.  238  and  239,  two  allegories,  lively  in  move- 
ment, with  ample  force  and  conventional  color,  but  devoid  of 
other  aim  than  sensational  effect.  His  "  Psyche  "  is  daintily  silly. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  common  defects  of  these  men  are 
want  of  right  feeling,  or  an  elevated  conception  of  their  themes, 
or  even  a  natural  one.  They  are  revolutionary  in  art,  the  off- 
spring of  troublous  times,  producing  compositions  that  would 
have  affrighted  Poussin  and  Le  Sueur  in  their  tame  routine  of 
academic  proprieties.  Gymnasts  of  painting  I  call  them,  when 
they  do  not  affect  the  merely  sentimental  ;  for  their  chief  effort  is 
to  startle  by  displays  of  vigorous  design  and  technical  force. 
They  do  not  lack  knowledge  or  skill.  Their  art  is  the  antithesis 
of  the  effeminate  school,  and  their  sense  of  color  is  as  coarse  and 
unfeeling  as  that  of  the  Louis  XV.  period  was  insipid  and 
frivolous.  Neither  has  produced  works  worthy  of  preservation, 
or  beneficial  in  an  sesthethic  view.  On  the  contrary,  their  in- 
fluence is  bad  in  taste  and  motives.  But  the  revolutionists  did 
good  service  in  breaking  up  and  dispersing  the  corrupt  atmos- 
phere of  the  former  school,  in  introducing  vigor  and  variety, 
and  substituting  for  the  baneful  worship  of  royalty  the  love  of 
national  glory,  which,  although  diverted  by  Napoleon  too  much 
towards  military  ambition,  was  based  on  a  sentiment  of  patriot- 
ism. The  many  miles  of  canvases  which  have  since  been 
devoted  by  the  ablest  artists  to  a  pictorial  record  of  battles  are 
graphic  as  narratives,  but  embody  no  higher  lessons  than  the  san- 
guinary triumphs  of  French  valor.    Reverses  and  humiliations 


248 


H.  VERNET  AND  TROYON. 


are  studiously  omitted,  forgetful  that  defeat  in  a  right  cause  is 
more  to  a  people's  glory  than  victory  in  an  evil  one.  These 
military  pictures,  though  not  the  most  wholesome  training  for  a 
nation,  are,  however,  in  every  way  superior  to  those  in  vogue  in 
the  royal  edifices  before  them.  Right  or  wrong,  they  are  national, 
and  every  Frenchman  is  identified  with  their  histories.  An  art 
which  keeps  alive  in  the  people  the  consciousness  of  their  own 
importance  in  the  state,  even  though  on  a  low  plane  of  justice 
and  right,  merits  an  acknowledgment  of  its  special  benefit. 

Let  us  now  succinctly  examine  the  successors  of  the  masters 
of  the  first  Empire,  before  closing  with  those  whose  reputations 
have  not  yet  been  fully  tested  by  time.  For  the  first,  Horace 
Vernet,  Delacroix,  Ary  Scheffer,  Delaroche,  Troyon,  Ingres, 
Decamps,  Fleury,  and  Hippolyte  Flandrin  are  sufliicient  to  illus- 
trate the  varied  development  of  their  school  immediately  subse- 
quent to  the  period  just  examined.  Of  these  men,  Vernet  is  the 
most  direct  oflTspring  of  the  common  taste  and  mind  of  France. 
He  is  the  artist  of  the  multitude.  All  is  revealed  at  one  look. 
His  hand  and  eye  are  quick,  memory  retentive,  and  manner 
dashing,  materialistic,  and  sensational.  The  love  of  excitement 
and  adventure,  a  free  camp-life,  and  brave  deeds,  are  his  special 
attractions.  He  tells  his  story  rapidly  and  off-hand,  freely  em- 
phasizing for  effect,  but  in  the  main  truth-telling.  It  is  done  by 
action,  for  he  has  no  sentiment  of  color,  and  no  higher  intellect- 
ual aim  than  declamation.  Vernet  is  a  clever  but  not  great 
artist.  He  rejects  academic  trammels,  and  makes  himself  a 
spirited  reporter  of  history  in  its  external  look,  the  French 
soldier  being  his  ideal  man.  In  fine,  he  seems  to  be  a  sort  of 
*'  our  own  correspondent "  of  the  brush,  after  the  stamp  of  the 
"Times's"  Russell,  very  acceptable  to  those  who  care  only  for  a 
lively  told  story. 

Troyon  in  another  field  is  equally  materialistic,  and  protests 
with  like  power  against  old  conventionaUsm.  A  heavy,  coarse 
man  himself,  he  depicts  cattle  to  life  —  hard  working  and  docile 
to  his  dull-minded  masters,  in  a  landscape  savoring  of  heat  and 
toil.  He  sees  the  earth  only  after  the  "  fall  !  "  There  is  no 
sentiment  of  paradise  in  it.  In  its  kind  his  painting  is  hearty, 
done  in  a  masterly  but  narrow  vein.  His  animals  are  animals  ; 
not  like  Rosa  Bonheur's  skin-painted  effigies  in  fields  and  at- 
mosphere of  opaque  paint.  Compared  with  her,  Troyon  is  great. 
His  realism  is  felt  from  nature  ;  hers  is  artificial,  clever  in  design, 
but  wanting  the  breath  of  life.    Troyon  gives  dust,  sweat,  work, 


Dt CAMPS  AND  INGRES. 


249 


air.  His  peasants  and  cattle  are  in  keeping  with  their  natal 
clods.  Latterly  he  grew  to  be  greedy  of  profit  and  careless  of 
reputation.  But  his  best  works  form  a  landmark  of  positive 
progress  in  the  right  direction.  He  floods  his  pictures  with 
glowing  light  and  transparent  shadow.  One  feels  it  is  out-door 
work,  and  plenty  of  it ;  no  shirking  of  application,  but  a  strong 
brush  obedient  to  a  powerful  hand.  Troyon  suggests  life  and 
movement ;  Rosa  Bonheur  counterfeits  both.  He  is  an  Anak 
by  nature  ;  she  only  skims  the  substance  of  things. 

If  we  are  to  judge  artists  only  by  what  they  actually  do  to  ad- 
vance their  profession  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  phase,  Ingres  de- 
serves no  mention.  But  some  men  must  be  cited  either  for  the 
evil  they  do,  the  mistakes  they  make,  or  the  little  good  use  they 
put  their  talents  to.  In  the  Luxembourg  there  are  frequent  ex- 
amples of  each  of  these  phases.  Of  men  like  Decamps,  strong, 
original,  with  a  profound  subjective  sense  of  color.  Oriental  in 
feeling  and  poetical  in  expression,  who  often  waste  their  fine 
powers  on  topics  unworthy  of  them,  adding  merely  to  the  curios- 
ities of  art  or  its  eccentricities,  as  in  his  monkey  pictures  ;  like 
Fleury,  serious  and  intellectual,  but,  in  aiming  at  the  tragic  and 
heroic,  often  bordering  on  the  burlesque  from  overdone  physical 
expression,  as  in  his  shrieking  Queen  ;  or  like  the  accomplished 
Ingres,  striving  for  a  high  range  of  idealism  in  motives  and  design, 
and  falling  into  the  stale  academic  and  effete  conventional,  con- 
spicuous examples  of  which  are  shown  in  Nos.  102  and  105, 
"  Jesus  giving  the  keys  to  St.  Peter,"  and  "  Homer  Deified  " ; 
compositions  forced  from  an  unyielding  imagination,  confused  iu 
grouping,  artificial,  and  feelingless.  If  possible,  No.  103,  "  Roger 
delivering  Angelique,"  a  subject  taken  from  Ariosto,  is  worse  than 
the  other  two,  for  it  is  polished  into  sculpturesque  smoothness, 
without  texture  of  rock,  flesh,  water,  or  armor ;  academic  precision 
and  skill  of  touch,  yes,  but  remote  from  any  possibility  of  nature, 
and  appearing  more  like  a  looking-glass  reflection  than  painting. 
The  cartoons  made  for  the  painted  glass  windows  of  the  chapels 
of  Dreux  and  St.  Ferdinand  at  Sablonville  are  more  favorable 
specimens  of  his  technical  abilities.  The  figures  of  the  saints, 
drawn  after  the  modernized  Byzantine  type,  are  quiet,  digni- 
fied, but,  like  all  modern  work  of  this  character,  wanting  in  that 
solid  archaic  grandeur  and  richness  which  distinguishes  the  an- 
cient art.  Ingres  appears  best  in  portraiture.  This  talent  he 
shares  with  the  artists  of  repute  from  Clouet  down,  for  they 
have  a  faculty  of  seizing  hold  of  salient  points  of  character,  and 


250 


ARY  SCHEFFER. 


drawing  to  the  surface  the  spirituel  elements.  Painting,  too, 
directly  from  nature,  they  succeed  better  as  colorists. 

Ary  SchefFer  is  a  poet,  but  not  a  painter.  Color  eludes  his 
pencil.  But  his  elevated  imagination,  purity  of  treatment,  spirit- 
ual apprehension  of  his  themes,  often  allied  to  the  supernatural, 
and  his  recognition  of  Christian  motives  in  their  loftiest  sense, 
render  him  a  remarkable  exception  to  the  uniform  tendency  of 
his  school  to  materialistic  life  and  thought.  He  rarely  attempts 
realism.  Abstract  ideas  and  religious  motives,  cold  and  shadowy, 
but  lofty  and  pure  as  symbolized  in  his  mind,  he  seeks  to  pic- 
torialize.  But  he  began  otherwise.  For  a  time,  before  he 
reached  the  lucid  atmosphere  of  his  final  manner,  he  was  infected 
with  the  passion  for  the  horrible,  and  appealed  to  the  spectator's 
sympathies  by  means  of  physical  suffering  only.  But  he  never 
added  to  these  lasciviousness  or  brutality,  either  in  color  or  ex- 
pression. Indeed,  he  finds  difficulty  in  rising  above  the  technically 
pretty ;  but  throughout  his  art  there  is  an  inferior  sentiment  or 
feeling  that  appeals  to  the  higher  sentiments.  The  "  Fran- 
cesca "  is  an  exception  to  his  general  want  of  strength.  That 
borders  on  the  sublime, 

Delaroche  is  another  exceptional  artist,  noteworthy  for  his 
poetical  conception  of  historical  themes,  his  elevated  religious 
spirit,  and  his  chaste  manner.  He  is  an  academician,  with  a 
mind  enlarged  by  study,  and  governed  by  purer  taste  than  that 
about  him.  Averse  to  noise  and  movement,  he  is  the  reverse 
of  Horace  Vernet  in  style  and  feeling.  The  one  fled  from  the 
Academy  to  nature  for  inspiration.  The  other  buried  himself  in 
his  studio  to  mature  his  conceptions  by  slow  process  of  thought 
and  work.  Vernet  would  begin  on  an  immense  canvas  at  the 
top,  and  paint  down  with  a  rapid  brush,  finishing  as  he  went. 
Delaroche  had  none  of  this  extemporizing  power.  But  he  com- 
posed well,  even  eloquently ;  drew  poems,  eleborated  academic 
work,  but  with  less  of  that  consciousness  of  hard  toil  which  is 
apparent  with  Ingres ;  had  a  noble  sense  of  the  human  figure  ; 
an  elevated  appreciation  of  the  true  purposes  of  art ;  was  tran- 
quil and  dignified,  and  would  have  been  a  great  painter  had  his 
talents  for  coloring  been  equal  to  his  other  merits.  In  this  re- 
spect he  fails.  His  color  is  heavy,  positive,  and  speechless.  It 
even  tells  against  the  intellectual  motives  of  his  pictures.  Like 
most  moderns,  he  appears  best  in  engraving.  The  chiefs  of  the 
old  masters  lose  by  it. 

The  example  of  Delaroche  adds  another  to  the  frequent  in- 


DELAROCHE. 


251 


stances  in  the  French  school  of  its  loss  of  crowning  glory  be- 
cause of  the  vital  deficiency  of  a  true  instinct  of  color,  which 
no  education  can  perfectly  remedy  or  intellectual  delight  in  it  in 
others  secure  to  one's  self.  The  Bolognese  academicians  sought 
to  rival  the  Venetians  by  means  of  eclectic  studies,  and  notably 
failed,  though  producing  work  of  much  value.  The  French 
fail  also  of  reaching  to  the  same  great  standard  from  like  natural 
causes.  Their  native  bias  is  for  design.  Hence  their  coloring, 
with  but  few  exceptions,  is  the  result  of  various  scientific  theo- 
ries containing  more  or  less  but  not  all  of  the  truth  requisite  to 
create  perfect  color.  That  fine  sense  which  causes  it  to  express 
moods  and  ideas,  which  makes  it  subjective  and  accessory  to 
the  main  motive,  is  the  exception,  not  the  rule,  with  them. 
With  the  older  Italians  and  Spanish  painters,  it  is  a  common 
feature,  and  constitutes  the  fundamental  excellence  of  their  sys- 
tems. United  to  equal  genius  of  design,  it  gives  them  a  com- 
pleteness of  aesthetic  value  we  look  in  vain  for  on  the  same 
scale  elsewhere,  unless  it  be  among  the  early  Flemish  and  Ger- 
man masters.  But  color  is  employed  by  them  in  a  more  exter- 
nal and  decorative  manner.  Delaroche  worked  for  this  gift,  and 
so  did  Ary  SchefFer,  but  neither  succeeded  in  obtaining  it.  The 
conscientious  career  of  Delaroche  is  an  instructive  example  in 
his  school.  His  temperament  being  melancholy,  the  subjects 
chosen  by  him  were  generally  of  that  stamp.  There  was  in 
him  no  spontaneity  of  execution,  but  rather  slow,  toilsome  com- 
position ;  a  continual  struggle  towards  an  ideal,  which,  as  in 
everything  human,  kept  ever  the  same  distance  from  the  paint- 
er's easel.  Each  acquisition  lifted  the  artist's  standard  a  step 
higher.  An  eclectic  student,  laboring  to  arouse  emotion  by 
dramatic  incidents  taken  quite  as  often  from  foreign  history  as 
his  own,  mostly  pathetic  and  with  a  profound  moral,  having  a 
sympathy  with  suffering,  viewing  facts  in  their  poetical  aspect, 
Delaroche  is  a  man  of  striking  talents  and  fine  sensibilities,  but 
not  a  genius  in  its  large  meaning.  His  intellectual  faculties  were 
so  well  balanced  that  he  could  have  won  distinction  in  any  other 
career. 

If  it  needed  Ary  SchefFer  to  temper  the  dominant  materialism 
with  his  spiritual  apprehension  of  art,  it  not  less  needed  HijDpo- 
lyte  Flandrin  as  an  example  of  a  purely  religious  master.  His 
sincerity  and  high-mindedness  would  have  done  honor  to  the 
best  periods  of  the  sacred  art  of  Italy.  Having  a  faith  in 
divine  things,  Flandrin  incarnated  his  ideas  in  a  remarkable 


252 


FLANDRIN. 


series  of  wall-paintings  for  public  edifices  and  in  easel-pictures, 
borrowed  in  general  characteristics  from  early  Christian  art,  but 
treated  in  his  own  thoughtful  and  refined  manner.  Other  relig- 
ious art  of  France,  with  here  and  there  an  isolated  or  partial 
exception,  is  the  mercenary  labor  of  skeptical  studios  in  which 
crucifixions,  saints,  martyrs,  and  the  usual  topics  of  the  Bible  and 
sacred  traditions  are  painted  from  academic  receipts  or  stolen 
outright  from  abler  hands,  without  a  trace  of  religious  feeling. 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  most  often  theatrical,  silly,  or  inane 
if  not  vulgarly  or  maliciously  wicked,  and  in  their  best  condition 
simply  endurable  as  displaying  the  aesthetic  training  of  the  com- 
poser. Flandrin's  career  in  comparison  seems  like  a  light 
direct  from  heaven  to  guide  the  nation  into  a  purer  atmosphere. 
But  its  rays  fall  on  indifferent  men.  Aside  from  the  multitude 
of  so-called  religious  works  of  the  heartless  patterns  annually 
called  for  to  fill  up  barren  wall-surfaces  in  churches,  the  best 
sacred  art  now  strives  simply  to  attain  either  strict  historical 
realism,  praiseworthy  and  valuable  from  its  external  point  of 
view,  or  falls  into  the  common  current  of  sensuous  decoration. 
The  more  honor,  therefore,  is  due  Flandrin  for  his  integrity. 
His  talent  of  composition  ranks  him  as  a  master,  and  he  is  as 
clear  and  simple  in  coloring  as  devout  in  spirit.  But  even  he 
cannot  free  himself  wholly  from  the  realistic  tendencies  that 
environ  him.  Flandrin  conceives  after  an  original  manner, 
keeps  the  religious  motive  in  sight,  but  the  realistic-picturesque 
prevails  in  execution,  as  is  to  be  seen  in  his  numerous  frescoes  in 
St.  Germain  des  Pres.  His  most  solemn  figures  are  prophets 
and  martyrs,  Byzantine  in  feeling,  but  late  Italian  in  execution. 
Although  Flandrin  stands  at  the  head  of  French  religious  art, 
he  would  take  no  such  rank  among  great  masters  elsewhere. 
There  is  nothing  grand  or  profound  in  his  works.  He  does  not 
rise  to  the  full  height  of  his  motives.  The  influence  of  Andrea 
del  Sarto  is  perceptible  in  his  style,  except  as  he  tries  to  give 
historical  verity  of  accessories,  while  the  Italian  introduced  only 
those  of  his  own  country  and  times ;  and  although  more  equal 
Flandrin  does  not  rival  him  in  vigor.  Below  Domenico  Ghirlan- 
dajo  in  power  and  invention,  he  makes  but  short  approach  to 
the  qualities  of  a  Leonardo,  a  Raphael,  or  a  Michael  Angelo. 
His  is  a  relative  greatness,  founded  more  on  contrast  of  his  well- 
intentioned  work  with  the  defects  of  his  school  than  any  uncom- 
mon genius  of  his  own.  It  is  an  example  that  goes  to  prove 
a  general  truth ;  namely,  the  incapacity  of  the  French  school 


A  PICTURE  BY  GIORGIONE. 


253 


thus  far  to  give  birth  to  art  based  on  exalted  religious  motives 
or  moral  feeling. 

Let  me  illustrate  from  a  picture  by  Giorgione  what  I  mean 
by  the  word  moral  in  this  connection,  premising  that  the  ear- 
lier Venetian  school  abounds  in  similar  motives.  Giorgione 
wishes  to  depict  how  and  why  Malatesta,  Lord  of  Rimini,  pre- 
vious to  his  excommunication,  was  reproved  by  the  pope  for 
his  concupiscence  and  cruelties.  As  an  artist,  his  first  care  is  to 
make  a  complete  painting,  but  which  shall  declare  forcibly  the 
moral  of  the  tale.  He  paints  a  broad,  hilly  landscape  bounded 
by  the  densely  blue  Apennines,  —  that  intense  blue  that  tints 
his  native  hills,  —  and  intersperses  the  fore  and  middle  grounds 
with  forest  and  cultivated  lands,  abounding  in  flowers,  and  the 
game  the  feudal  lord  loves  to  hunt.  Malatesta's  castle  is  in  a 
distant  mountain-peak,  at  the  foot  of  which  is  his  tower.  A 
shepherd  is  piping  to  his  flock  in  one  spot,  while  not  far  off  a 
savage  hound  is  worrying  a  hare  to  death ;  a  hit  at  the  habits 
of  the  haughty  lord,  who  sits  in  the  centre  of  the  composition, 
on  a  broken  sarcophagus,  richly  sculptured,  with  other  ruins  of 
temple  and  statues  about,  to  indicate  how  bad  government  had 
overtlirown  the  high  civilization  of  former  times.  Malatesta  is 
an  imposing  figure,  richly  costumed  according  to  the  fashion  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  fifteenth  century.  His  scarlet  cap  hangs 
on  the  limb  of  a  twig,  and  one  hand  is  protectingly  placed  on 
the  shoulders  of  his  golden-tressed  mistress,  whose  face  is 
turned  beseechingly  towards  him  as  he  frowns  at  the  messenger 
from  the  pope,  who  is  interrupting  his  dalliance.  The  lady  is 
refined  in  figure,  decorous  and  picturesque  in  dress,  handsome, 
but  has  the  extremities  of  her  feet  uncovered,  perhaps  to  denote 
an  humble  origin  or  her  loose  relation  with  Malatesta.  A  skull 
is  held  towards  him  by  the  pilgrim-ambassador,  who  bears  upon 
his  costume  the  keys  of  St.  Peter,  and  the  tokens  of  a  pilgrim- 
age to  the  Holy  Land.  Pointing  to  the  death's  head,  he  ad- 
monishes the  prince  that  it  is  bad  to  live  in  a  condition  in  which 
he  would  not  wish  to  die  ;  a  message  that  is  to  be  read  in  Latin, 
as  an  inscription  on  an  uncovered  sarcophagus,  overshadowed 
by  a  broken  image,  near  the  arms  of  Malatesta. 

The  picture  in  itself  is  beautiful  on  account  of  its  execution, 
and  the  breadth,  simplicity,  and  richness  of  the  composition. 
Every  detail  is  conscientiously  studied  from  nature ;  the  figures 
are  admirably  designed  and  posed,  and  the  whole  painted  as  the 
rival  of  Titian  knew  how  to  paint.    Intellectually  it  is  equally 


254 


COUTURE. 


a  success,  for  the  stern,  overbearing  tyrant,  the  threatening 
pilgrim,  and  the  pleading  concubine  are  thoroughly  in  character ; 
and  it  is  also  one  of  the  numerous  examples  of  the  Venetian 
painters  in  always  treating  wonaan  so  as  to  dignify  and  not  to 
disgrace  her,  whatever  she  might  be  in  herself;  at  all  events,  to 
excite  chaste  admiration  of  her  charms,  or  sympathy  for  her 
misfortunes,  and  not,  as  is  the  modern  practice,  to  incite  libidi- 
nous feeling  or  mock  at  chastity  with  sardonic  unction.  The 
superiority  of  old  art  is  based  almost  as  much  on  its  morale  as 
its  execution  and  aesthetic  constitution.  We  are  apt  to  over- 
look the  best  points  in  the  old  masters  because  of  our  training 
to  regard  only  the  superficial  and  external,  and  especially  the 
meaning  and  delight  that  come  of  a  harmony  between  the  sub- 
tleties of  character  and  color  in  compositions  of  a  high  range 
of  motives. 

Couture.  Couture  is  the  OiDposite  of  Flandrin ;  a  genuine 
Delacroix,  offspring  of  French  feeling,  tempering,  however,  its 
sensual  bias  with  the  eesthetic  requirements  of  his  personal 
tastes,  and  making  pictures  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view, 
vitalized  by  passions  and  sentiments  akin  to  their  themes.  Es- 
pecially is  this  true  of  his  masterpiece,  "  The  Romans  of  the 
Decadence,"  which  best  exhibits  his  quality  of  genius  and  highly 
trained  skill.  It  is  an  allegory  subdued  by  realistic  treatment  to 
the  comprehension  of  every  one.  Ideal  in  conception,  and  avoid- 
ing the  scenic  display  and  trite  conventionalism  of  the  David 
school,  it  shows  a  possible  classical  debauch,  without  attaining 
to  the  local  and  historic  verity  of  more  recent  treatment.  Alle- 
gory predominates.  Similar  scenes  must  have  marked  the  de- 
cline of  Roman  virtue,  but  this  painting  rises  above  the  partic- 
ular spectacle  to  the  realization  of  the  collapse  of  a  mighty 
empire,  and  symbolizing  the  vices  and  crimes  which  ruined  it. 

Couture's  aesthetic  perceptions  were  too  nice  to  permit  him  to 
indulge  in  the  common  trait  of  making  the  nude  simply  unchaste. 
His  figures  are  voluptuous,  but  not  lewd.  Even  in  intoxication 
he  preserves  them  from  the  loathsome  by  the  grandeur  of  their 
passions,  and  those  ancestral  memories  that  withhold  them  from 
absolute  bestiality.  They  are  drunk  to  the  reeling  of  reason; 
eyes  glisten  with  thickening  films  and  besotted  desires  ;  speech 
staggers  ;  forms  totter ;  action  is  growing  benumbed  by  the  fatal 
cup ;  but  the  aristocratic  mien  of  the  masters  of  the  earth  never 
wholly  leaves  them.  How  can  it  be  otherwise  in  the  presence  of 
those  grave  statues  of  their  fathers  that  look  down  upon  them 


DELACROIX. 


255 


like  admonishing  visitors  of  another  world  ?  Compared  with  the 
lecherous  orgies  that  French  art  gives  of  scenes  of  the  Orleans 
regency  and  subsequent  reign,  it  is  a  veritable  debauch  of 
gods. 

The  technical  treatment  of  this  effective  painting  betrays  tbe 
influence  of  Veronese,  though  there  is  no  servile  following  of 
any  master.  It  is  brilliant  and  luminous  in  color,  but  falls  into 
the  not  uncommon  fault  of  the  school  of  broken  and  scattered 
lights,  and  a  certain  fierceness  of  effect,  which  comes  of  fiery 
blood  and  strong  passions. 

The  colorists  of  the  French  school,  with  few  exceptions,  have 
something  repellant  and  unsatisfactory,  particularly  in  a  moral 
sense,  in  the  tone  of  their  pictures.  It  is  a  disturbing,  irritating 
quality.  Fleury  has  it ;  Decamps  less,  his  best  tone  being  one 
of  solemn  magnificence,  speaking  to  the  imagination  ;  Diaz  dis- 
plays it  in  reckless  wantonness  of  brush,  luscious  and  warm,  but 
not  as  pure  as  might  be  ;  and  Delacroix  revels  in  it  with  fierce 
delight.  Venetian  art  mastered  color,  and  made  it  subserve  its 
more  noble  ideas  by  an  implicit  obedience  to  aesthetic  law. 
But  color,  with  French  masters,  often  runs  into  riot  and  fracas. 

Delacroix  is  a  great  colorist  in  point  of  original  force, 
though  not  the  most  perfect  in  practice.  It  comes  of  his  blood. 
He  thinks,  speaks,  invents  in  color.  Subjects  are  chosen  to 
admit  of  its  prodigal  use.  He  discharges  it  like  a  burst  of 
fireworks.  His  pictures  overpower  by  their  fury  of  brush. 
For  it  he  often  neglects  design.  With  the  zeal  of  a  revolution- 
ist, he  bears  the  spectator  away,  or  dashes  him  aside  like  an  im- 
petuous torrent.  He  treats  colors  as  Buonarotti  did  design. 
No  pupil  can  follow  him.  There  is  little  beauty  in  it,  less 
grace,  no  tenderness,  and  no  faith ;  but  everywhere  is  seen  a 
creative,  untiring  intellect,  surging  and  foaming  in  a  colored  sea 
of  passion. 

Delacroix  delights  in  the  dark  side  of  life.  Famine,  impris- 
onment, martyrdom,  the  desolations  of  war,  massacres,  cruelties, 
orgies,  tragedy ;  Hamlet,  Macbeth,  Othello  ;  madness,  melan- 
choly, and  crime ;  these  are  the  themes  that  inspire  his  brush. 
To  Dante's  "  Inferno  "  he  turns  for  choicest  topics.  Tasso's  insan- 
ity, Byron's  ravings,  the  society  of  madmen,  or  madness  turned 
inward  to  gnaw  upon  itself,  the  latent  ferocity  of  wild  beasts, 
alike  charm  him.  See  his  tiger's  head  in  the  Luxembourg  :  a 
mere  suggestion  in  form  and  color,  yet  exhibiting  the  pitiless, 
blood-dreaming  animal  in  its  most  sinister  aspect.    Look  at  his 


256 


DELACROIX. 


"  Massacre  of  Scio  "  for  a  revolting  accumulation  of  the  horrors 
of  war ;  nothing  pathetic,  nothing  exalted  as  patriotism  or  sub- 
lime in  resignation,  but  a  revelling  in  the  atrocious,  cruel,  and 
ensanguined,  without  any  palliation  by  way  of  idealism  in  de- 
sign. Instead,  every  possible  heightening  of  physical  horror, 
with  crude,  coarse,  contrasted,  loaded  colors,  and  scattered  lights, 
shocking  and  confusing  the  senses.  In  the  neighboring  picture 
of  "  Dante  and  Virgil,"  the  anguish  of  the  wretched  souls  cling- 
ing to  Charon's  bark,  looming  up  in  the  hellish  gloom  and  glare 
of  the  coloring,  is  unspeakable.  A  unique  but  not  a  pleasant 
painter,  Delacroix !  Mythology,  instead  of  beautiful  fable,  af- 
fords him  a  copious  supply  of  monsters,  and  slaughter  of  every 
variety.  He  shrinks  at  and  shirks  nothing  in  his  terrible  lab- 
oratory of  art,  to  heighten  the  impressions  of  supernatural  vehe- 
mence, suffering,  or  strength.  His  peculiar  powers  culminate  in 
the  "Apollo  triumphing  over  Python,"  which  occupies  the  post  of 
honor  in  the  ceiling  of  the  Apollo  gallery  of  the  Louvre.  Here 
he  absolutely  creates  a  light  glowing  with  the  fire  of  the  combat. 
He  is  borne  away  by  the  intensity  of  his  conceptions,  he  looms 
up  as  a  great  dramatic  genius  of  unbalanced  powers,  the  focus  of 
the  strongest  and  deepest  qualities  of  the  national  proclivities 
in  art.  Like  all  great  artists,  he  loves  space.  But  he  also  has 
the  ability  to  put  greatness  into  small  compass.  When  called 
on  to  decorate  St.  Sulpice  or  the  Chapel  St.  Denis  du  St. 
Sacrament  in  the  Marais,  the  calmer  requirements  of  religious 
art  failed  to  temper  his  impetuous  palette.  The  Virgin  is  frantic 
with  earthly  woe.  Mary  Magdalen  gives  herself  up  to  equally 
tragic  sorrow.  St.  Michael  of  St.  Sulpice  is  a  failure,  not  so 
much  in  color  as  in  those  grand  qualities  of  original  design 
which  distinguish  most  of  his  other  work.  It  recalls  Raphael's 
in  idea,  but  fails  notably  in  comparison  with  it.  But  the  rush 
of  wind  shown  in  the  disturbed  curtain  in  the  "  Heliodorus,'*  the 
velocity  of  the  avenging  angels  as  they  precipitate  themselves 
through  the  air,  and  the  vigor  of  their  chastisement  are  emi- 
nently superhuman.  The  horse,  however,  is  awkwardly  done. 
"  Jacob  wrestling  with  the  Angel "  is  also  noteworthy  for  vigor. 
The  herculean  strength  of  the  patriarch,  as  he  lifts  the  angel,  is 
astonishingly  rendered.  But  the  painting  is  confused  by  the 
long  drawn  out  caravan  of  Jacob  as  it  passes  in  the  distance,  so 
that  the  wrestling  seems  like  side-play,  instead  of  being  the 
great  point  of  the  composition.  The  landscape  is  imbued  with 
that  mysterious  sympathy  with  the  scene  which  constituted  the 
essential  element  of  Titian's  "  Peter  the  Martyr." 


MULLERS  ''CALL  OF  THE  CONDEMNED."  257 


Delacroix  was  an  enigma  to  his  countrymen  at  large,  for  al- 
though genuinely  French  in  temperament  and  thought,  his  range 
of  imagination  was  above  theirs.  He  had  no  sympathy  what- 
ever with  their  worship  of  the  "  pretty."  The  large  and  terri- 
ble pleased  him  most.  If  his  genius  had  been  qualified  by 
grace  ;  could  he  have  attained  harmony  in  coloring  and  unity 
of  graduated  lights  focused  to  the  emphatic  point,  and  given 
more  heed  to  aesthetic  principles  in  composition,  —  he  might  have 
rivalled  Paul  Veronese,  whom  he  so  admired  as  to  assert  that  to 
him  he  owed  everything.  As  it  is,  he  cannot  be  called  the  equal 
of  the  brilliant  Venetian.  Although  color  was  a  vital  force  in 
him,  and  also  creative  design,  neither  was  under  perfect  control. 
Draperies  are  often  sketchy,  leathery -like,  and  ill  adjusted,  encum- 
bering and  obscuring  rather  than  suggesting  form  and  life.  His. 
great  triumphs  are  in  wall-decoration,  wliether  in  fresco  or  oil. 
But  his  tints  are  often  dry,  crude,  dead,  lack  transparency,  and  do- 
not  harmoniously  blend.  Flesh-hues  in  his  easel  work  are  apt  to- 
be  cold  and  clayey.  Lights,  too,  are  confused  and  scattered.. 
There  is  also  frequent  want  of  unity  of  tone.  His  feeling  for- 
color  is  bHsed  on  passion  more  than  sentiment ;  splendid,  but 
coarse.   Still  everything  he  touches  bears  a  master's  solid  impress. 

Muller's  great  picture  of  the  "  Call  of  the  Condemned  "  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror  is  perhaps  the  best  composed  historical  paint- 
ing of  our  time.  None  that  I  know,  better  fulfils  the  require- 
ments of  this  branch  of  art,  as  a  realistic  narrative.  It  carries 
the  spectator  directly  into  the  scene  as  it  must  have  apjDeared  on 
that  morning  when  the  last  of  Robespierre's  victims  were  wan- 
tonly hurried  to  the  guillotine.  Muller  drags  it  bodily  out  of 
the  past,  and  puts  it  before  our  eyes  in  its  precise  truth,  without 
dramatic  exaggeration,  or  attempt  to  heighten  anguish  and 
despair  sufficiently  intense  in  their  own  naked  reality.  It  is  a 
conscientiously  told  tale.  The  officials  at  whose  action  we  are 
aghast,  are  justly  treated  ;  made  men  doing  a  stern  duty,  not 
ensanguined  monsters.  There  are  fifty  masterly  pictures,  each 
a  pathetic  tale  by  itself ;  every  separate  group  and  individual 
action  diversified  in  emotion,  but  filling  its  place  with  appropriate 
feeling  in  the  harmonious  whole ;  all  subdued  to  an  approjariate 
key  of  light,  in  fine  gradation,  centred  outside  the  prison-door, 
where  waits  the  cart  which  is  fast  filling  with  its  dismal  load. 
There  is  no  attempt  at  an  imaginative  treatment,  as  in  Couture's 
picture,  but  in  place  of  it  a  picturesque  rendering  of  the  specta- 
cle, based  upon  a  thorough  study  of  incidents,  costumes,  persons, 
17 


258 


MEISSONNIER. 


and  locality,  with  copious  variety  of  action  and  expression.  It  is 
devoid  of  academic  artificiality  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  other 
extreme  of  conventional  idealism  on  the  other.  Sincerity  and 
sympathy  are  joined  to  unquestioned  skill  and  rare  talent  in 
composition.  Delacroix,  by  his  grand  manner,  writes  his  auto- 
graph all  over  his  work,  and  we  are  led  to  think  as  much  of  the 
artist  as  his  subject.  Poussin,  Ingres,  and  like  men,  represent 
systems  or  theories,  and  provoke  comparisons.  Delaroche  ex- 
cites the  sentiments  by  his  poetical  sense,  but  his  defective  style 
of  painting  detracts  from  the  enjoyment.  Even  the  Couture 
which  hangs  opposite,  recalls  the  studio  overmuch  as  a  composi- 
tion, besides  being  spotty  in  high  lights,  and  securing  brilliancy  at 
such  sacrifice  of  unity  of  tone  and  color  as  to  make  it  border  on 
the  sensational  in  general  effect.  Muller  attempts  nothing  that 
he  cannot  do  thoroughly  well  and  in  a  quiet,  truth-telling  manner. 
His  system  gives  all  to  art,  regardless  of  exhibiting  the  artist. 
The  painting  is  not  the  highest  effort,  but  it  is  a  success  in  high 
art  complete  in  its  way.  Muller  paints  history  as  Motley  writes 
it,  picturesquely,  and  with  insight  into  its  emotions. 

Compte  is  a  skilful  painter  of  the  historical-picturesque,  of 
elegant  executive  taste,  with  too  much  stress  on  the  effective 
pretty,  in  fine  a  clever  novelist  in  color  of  the  Walter  Scott  order. 

Gerome  and  Meissonnier  are  painters  of  the  historical-genre 
type.  David  tried  to  paint  history  as  Livy  writes  it.  But 
these  men  more  nearly  resemble  acute  tourists  whose  powers  of 
observation  and  imagination,  being  well  balanced,  enable  them 
graphically  to  depict  those  scenes  which  make  up  the  actual  life 
and  history  of  a  people.  They  do  not  paint  ideas,  or  even 
emotions,  but  spectacles.  There  is  a  meaning,  though,  in  what 
Gerome  does ;  often  a  lesson  of  deep  import,  though,  like  Ma- 
caulay  or  Thiers  in  history,  he  may  as  an  artist  be  more  intent 
on  the  picture  than  the  principle. 

Both  are  realists,  Gerome  inclined  to  the  sensual,  and  Meis- 
sonnier, so  far  as  he  shows  feeling,  to  the  brutal.  They  neither 
offend  nor  captivate  by  color,  but  strive  for  local  truth  in  a  cold, 
prosaic  manner.  Each  is  masterly  in  execution.  Gerome  often 
finishes  to  a  degree  of  brush-polish  which  leaves  his  figures  like 
porcelain,  a  vicious  practice  which  mars  his  great  skill  in  com- 
posing. The  "  Siamese  Ambassadors  "  is  a  marvel  of  pencil  fin- 
ish, but  worthless  as  fine  painting.  The  best  of  the  modern  finish- 
ers, as  we  may  call  those  who  concentrate  their  strongest  efforts 
upon  dexterity  of  brush,  do  not  equal  early  Flemish  and  Ger- 


GtnOME. 


239 


man  work.  Van  Eyok,  Albert  Durer,  and  Holbein  surpass 
them.  The  old  masters,  however,  did  not  often  waste  their  skill 
on  inferior  motives.  If  the  object  was  in  itself  lowly  or  common, 
they  elevated  it  by  its  application,  and  kept  it  in  its  right  posi- 
tion and  connection  with  their  main  topics,  in  obedience  to  the 
canons  of  high  art.  One  of  their  paintings  is  something  more 
than  a  picture  in  the  modern  sense.  Too  many  of  our  best 
trained  artists  are  content  to  find  a  "  subject."  Meissonnier  is 
a  painter  of  no  higher  aim.  Gerome  does  better.  His  realistic 
elaboration  is  not  always  limited  to  mere  technical  triumphs. 
He  evokes  the  past  of  Greece,  Rome,  or  France,  in  their  hap- 
piest effects  of  architecture,  costume,  and  scene,  with  the  same 
vivid  reality  with  which  he  paints  subjects  whose  accuracy  we 
are  able  to  test  by  our  own  observation.  For  his  capacity  of 
keen  humor,  witness  tlie  "  Augurs."  Rarely  are  learning  and 
skill  better  united,  though  his  intellectual  discernment  is  not 
of  the  highest  character.  Still  his  is  the  true  method  of  illus- 
trative history.  The  idealism  is  strictly  confined  to  its  legiti- 
mate purpose  of  beauty  as  defined  by  classic  art,  while  the 
motives  are  drawn  from  actual  life,  facts,  or  myths,  and  treated 
in  their  natural  or  probable  aspect.  By  this  system,  while 
availing  himself  of  all  that  is  useful  in  academic  rules,  he  makes 
them  conform  to  real  life.  In  other  words,  he  substitutes  the 
varied  natural  for  the  monotonous  conventional.  The  funda- 
mental principles  of  academic  teaching  are  right,  because  they 
recognize  truth  and  beauty  as  the  vital  forces  of  art.  But  in 
practice  it  has  long  gone  wrong,  narrowing  itself  to  formalism, 
and  reproducing  itself,  generation  after  generation,  in  forms  of 
increasing  weakness  and  worthlessness.  Among  the  modern 
men  of  whom  Gerome  is  so  illustrious  an  example,  it  has  come 
to  be  an  established  axiom,  that  mere  beauty  of  form,  harmony 
of  composition,  and  like  laws  of  aesthetic  taste  as  defined  by 
academic  practice  do  not  in  themselves  fulfil  its  entire  purpose, 
but  that  to  them  must  be  adjoined  the  vital  facts  and  spirit 
of  nature.  This  is  their  root  of  success.  It  was  that  of  the 
old  men.  Intervening  schools  neglected  the  substance  for  the 
shadow,  and  a  common  inanity  apjoears  in  them  all.  No  more 
washy  phantoms,  no  more  skin-deep  painting,  no  more  making 
of  lines  and  hues  the  finality  of  art,  but  consummate  work  as 
the  abode  of  informing  spirit,  the  old  law  of  art  restored  to  its 
legitimate  supremacy ;  such  is  the  code  of  modern  reformers. 
It  is  an  offshoot  of  the  revival  of  correct  principles,  which  has 


260 


BAUDRY. 


begun  to  bear  pleasant  fruit  for  our  century,  and  marks  its  sym- 
pathy with  the  mediaeval  mind  in  its  progress  towards  perfect 
work. 

The  chief  merit  of  Gerome  lies  in  his  apprehension  of  old 
truths,  and  his  patient,  skilful  application  of  them  with  the  ad- 
vantages which  modern  science  gives  him.  There  are,  however, 
some  things  wanting,  not  only  in  him,  but  the  French  school  as 
as  a  body.  First,  color,  as  language  or  feeling.  Gerome  has 
no  sentiment  of  color.  Secondly,  its  nudity  is  unchaste.  The 
severe  purity  of  the  Greek  and  Italian  masters  in  their  manage- 
ment of  the  naked  figure,  presenting  it  as  an  exquisite  poem,  or 
even  when  treating  the  sensual,  making  it  a  divine  instinct  or  a 
grand  passion,  finds  no  counterpart  in  the  French  mind.  That 
chiefly  sees  the  human  figure  from  its  voluptuous  and  animal 
aspect.  If  modesty  be  attempted,  it  is  a  counterfeit  virtue ;  an 
additional  seduction,  the  more  complete  by  betraying  the  sen- 
sual bias  of  the  artist's  brush.  When  not  unchaste,  it  is  given 
overmuch  to  kindred  passions,  or  the  exhibition  of  force  and  a 
taste  for  blood.  Hence  its  too  apparent  delight  in  the  cruel 
and  terrible ;  watching  human  suffering  with  an  amateur's  rel- 
ish, and  the  joy  it  finds,  as  in  Dore,  in  the  fiendish,  grotesque, 
obscene,  and  supernatural-hellish.  But  more  on  these  abnormal 
phases  later.  I  am  now  led  by  the  dubious  example  of  Gerome 
as  the  great  sensualist  of  the  school  to  point  out  its  demoraliz- 
ing tendencies.  It  may  be  objected  that  it  is  unfair  to  select  a 
conspicuous  artist  of  any  sort  as  a  representative  man.  On  the 
contrary,  I  hold  it  to  be  reasonable  and  just.  All  great  men 
are  national  types.  In  other  words,  they  are  the  culmination 
of  certain  national  proclivities.  In  art  Michael  Angelo  repre- 
sents the  highest  Etruscan  elements,  Albert  Duier  the  Ger- 
man, Rubens  the  Flemish,  Turner  the  English,  Delacroix 
the  French.  Whatever  is  instinctive  or  inbred  in  the  race  is 
sure  to  find  expression  in  its  art ;  great  in  great  men,  little  in 
little  men,  mean  in  mean  men,  evil  in  evil  men,  in  all  good  or 
bad  according  to  the  soil. 

Baudry  and  his  class  are  a  revival  of  the  wide-spread  feeling 
for  the  lascivious-pretty  of  the  Boucher  coterie  of  the  last  century, 
with  greater  fascination  of  coloring  and  style.  Wantonness  of 
this  sort  is  far  from  being  eliminated.  Indeed,  it  bids  fair  at 
present,  by  a  revived  love  of  the  nude,  to  become  more  deleterious 
than  ever.  Until  there  is  a  radical  purification  of  the  French 
temperament,  it  cannot  be  trusted  with  the  nude  any  more  than 


THE  NUDE  OF  FRENCH  ART.  261 


it  can  be  with  sacred  or  serious  themes.  It  degrades  it  into  the 
lascivious  or  sensual,  unless,  as  with  Delacroix,  overpowered  by 
another  passion,  it  strips  it  of  grace  and  beauty.  Once  the  Latin 
races  thought  of  the  human  figure  only  how  they  could  exalt 
and  purify  it  by  art,  and  make  it  more  divine.  Even  passion 
was  lifted  to  the  clouds,  not  trampled  in  the  mire.  The  ascetics 
sought  to  extinguish  it  entirely,  a  mistake  as  fatal  as  the  op- 
posite extreme  in  its  ultimate  consequences  on  character,  but  in 
art  sinning  on  the  side  of  purity.  Even  the  debauched  Renais- 
sance, with  all  its  countless  sins  of  infidelity  and  prolific  art-sen- 
suality, was  slow  in  descending  to  the  directly  obscene  and 
vulgar,  being  retarded  by  its  aesthetic  instincts.  But  French 
art  largely  plants  itself  on  the  sensual,  diversified,  it  is  true,  by 
an  esprit  or  wit  which  is  born  of  the  devilish-intellectual,  inocu- 
lated with  the  obscene.  This  aspect  is  too  revolting  to  be  en- 
larged upon.  Even  in  Paris  it  is  more  or  less  driven  by  the 
authorities  into  cover.  But  the  coquettish-lascivious,  having 
triumphed  over  the  mock-heroics  of  the  Davidites,  now  openly 
appears  without  rebuke.  It  is  not  simply  tolerated,  but  sus- 
tained by  a  patronage  which  pure  art  in  vain  seeks.  Sexual 
charms  are  made  more  tempting  by  lascivious  devices  of  drapery 
more  immodest  than  nakedness.  If  a  subject  be  sought  from 
history  as  an  excuse  for  obscenity,  it  is  taken,  like  that  of  Schaef- 
fer's  "  Henry  11.  Fete,"  from  a  spectacle  of  lewd  debauchery 
which  would  now  consign  every  participitant  to  a  penitentiary. 
Why  should  art  be  free  to  strip  ladies  naked,  mount  them  with 
lascivious  gestures  on  cattle,  surround  thera  with  the  rakes  of 
society,  who,  applauding,  drive  them  before  them  into  the  town 
either  of  Blois  in  the  16th  century  or  Paris  in  the  19th?  The 
real  scene,  no  doubt,  shocked  even  mediaeval  laxity.  France  of 
to-day,  under  the  sanction  of  the  government,  is  invited  to  admire 
the  corrupt  canvas. 

If  the  whole  nude  is  done  like  Baudry's  silly  "  Diana,"  —  a 
tempting  piece  of  flesh-tinting,  —  the  goddess  of  chastity  is 
rendered  with  her  divine  attribute  omitted,  and  transformed  into 
a  wanton  coquette.  As  individual  art,  however,  all  of  the  above 
character  is  too  frivolous  and  worthless  to  possess  more  than  a 
passing  influence,  though  unhappily  its  tendency  is  to  rapid 
propagation.  The  more  solid  sensual  brush  of  Gerome  has  a 
deeper  significance.  "  King  Caudaules,"  "  Phryne  before  the  Are- 
opagus," "  Alcibiades  with  Lais,"  the  "  Almeh,"  and  other  similar 
paintings,  seem  intended  to  be  the  opposite  in  effect  of  the  Greek 


262 


ITS  IMMORALITY. 


nude,  to  incarnate  womanhood  in  a  perfect  form,  and  thus  sug- 
gest its  divinest  attributes,  making,  as  with  the  "  Venus  de  Milo," 
chastity  so  complete,  that  the  idea  of  nudity  never  presents 
itself ;  but  to  show  off  the  voluptuous  attractions  of  impure  women, 
exhibiting  them  as  prize-animals  for  amorous  men  to  gloat  over. 
The  greater  the  technical  achievement,  the  more  dangerous  the 
painting.    Art  can  dishonor  as  well  as  honor  a  country. 

Further  to  illustrate  the  varied  expression  given  to  subjects  in 
which  the  sensual  passion  is  directly  embodied,  look  at  the  several 
treatments  of  the  common  topic  of  the  "  Temptation  of  St. 
Anthony  "  by  the  Italian,  Dutch,  and  French  painters.  The  first 
bring  the  physical  attractions  seductively  but  modestly  into  play. 
A  vision  of  a  beautiful  woman  disturbs  the  ascetic  solitude  of  the 
saint.  If  he  fall,  it  will  be  as  much  because  of  the  instinct  for 
companionship  implanted  in  him  by  his  Creator  as  from  sexual 
feeling,  which  is  kept  out  of  sight,  though  suggested.  The 
Dutchman  surrounds  him  with  obscene  demons  and  delirium- 
tremens  visions,  in  which  a  fiend-woman  appears.  No  danger 
of  fall  of  the  saint  with  such  diabolical  imagery  to  warn  "  hands 
off."  Our  Frenchman  provokes  his  appetites  by  carnal  attitudes 
and  charms  he  borrows  from  models  lost  to  self-respect. 

It  is  not  agreeable  to  be  thus  called  upon  to  indict  before 
public  opinion  a  great  school  of  art  for  offences  against  morality, 
and  consequently  against  civilization,  but  the  prominence  given 
to  carnality  is  too  marked  to  be  overlooked.  United  to  an 
almost  equal  love  for  military  motives,  and  those  based  on  phys- 
ical force  and  exhibitiorf  of  the  baser  passions,  it  demonstrates  a 
low  feeling  among  amateurs  and  artists.  This  is  further  illus- 
trated by  the  national  preference  of  the  Dutch  school  over 
the  Italian,  and  the  popularity  of  those  artists  who,  like  Meisson- 
nier,  follow  its  lead,  and  make  no  call  on  the  intellects  of  their 
countrymen,  by  way  of  suggestion  of  ideas  or  facts  calculated  to 
elevate  their  minds  in  any  sense.  These  men  give  themselves 
up  to  microscopic  painting,  resolving  everything  into  the  minute, 
with  marvellous  accuracy  of  design,  firmness  of  touch,  and 
elaborate  finish.  Meissonnier  is  vigorous  and  little.  He  adds 
to  the  curiosities  of  easel-work,  but  not  to  its  greatness.  As 
talent  it  is  almost  perfect  of  its  kind,  but  nothing  new  or  com- 
mendable. Gerome  can  beat  him  on  his  own  ground,  but  he 
does  not  rest  content  with  finished  nothingness.  I  refer  to  Meis- 
sonnier chiefly  to  call  attention  to  his  generally  low  range  of 
motives.    These  are  the  military-genre,  combats,  quarrels,  and 


THE  SPIRITUEL  ELEMENT. 


263 


crime.  Sometimes  he  rises  to  the  level  of  peaceful  games,  a 
friendly  glass  of  liquor,  or  similar  commonplaces.  Unlike 
Gerome,  he  has  no  power  of  acute  characterization.  To  exhibit 
his  skill  of  hand  seems  to  be  the  ruling  motive.  Schreyer's  "  Ar- 
tillery Charge"  of  the  Salon  of  1865  is  a  splendid  example  of 
broad  and  natural  treatment  of  the  military-genre,  as  full 
of  life  as  Meissonnier's  pictures  are  the  reverse. 

Although  I  have  alluded  to  the  French  fondness  for  Dutch 
art,  I  must  do  the  school  the  justice  to  state  that  it  never 
descends  to  the  level  of  the  Dutch  liking  for  debauchery,  drink- 
ing-bouts, and  their  attendant  fracases.  The  love  of  the  pretty 
does  good  service  in  preserving  it  from  this  lowest  stage  of 
materialism.  Neither  do  we  find  among  the  Dutchmen  the 
amateur  taste  for  suffering  and  lighter  vices  which  obtain  with 
their  Gallic  neighbors.  Both  schools  are  firmly  set  upon  the 
material  plane  of  art  as  distinguished  from  the  ideal  or  spiritual, 
and  each  finds  in  the  other  something  it  is  without  in  itself.  I 
do  not  mean  that  idealism  or  spirituality  is  not  represented  in 
French  art.  They  are  but  as  exceptions  to  its  general  cur- 
rent. The  spirituel  element  is  a  saving  grace,  and  gilds  much 
that  would  be  purely  offensive  without  it.  Yet  this  subtile  at- 
traction and  the  artistic  work  of  a  few  skilled  men  must  not 
lead  us  to  overlook  the  externality  of  the  ordinary  genre-painters 
of  France,  and  indeed  of  many  others.  Their  grave  shortcom- 
ings are  want  of  seriousness,  faith,  and  high  purpose.  They 
coquette  with  art  as  with  a  mistress,  using  it  alternately  for  their 
necessities  or  their  entertainment.  A  fundamental  feeling  for 
the  decorative  overrules  all.  Next  to  that  it  is  best  satisfied 
with  being  charming.  It  loves  also  lo  illustrate  and  to  amuse. 
In  caricature,  however,  it  has  little  real  wit,  being  given  to 
grossness,  exaggeration,  and  distortion,  which  it  mistakes  for  it. 
Rarely  does  it  recognize  things  spiritual  ;  almost  never  those 
universal  ethics  that  teach  humanity  and  inspire  it  with  fresh 
hopes  or  resignation.  Neither  has  it  political  aspirations.  Much 
that  it  might  express  as  freely  and  eloquently  as  does  its  sister- 
art,  literature,  it  omits  to  do.  Fashion,  power,  and  the  purse 
are  its  chief  stimulants.  It  would  be  unjust  to  lay  all  its  sins 
of  omission  at  the  door  of  the  government;  for  until  the  experi- 
ment is  fairly  tried,  it  cannot  know  how  far  its  liberty  of  action 
extends.  The  common  drift  is  towards  things  trivial  and  super- 
ficial. The  body  of  man  is  more  recognized  than  his  soul  by 
the  average  of  artists  ;  but  their  art  is  spiced  with  sufficient  in- 


264 


DESGOFFE  AND  FROMENTIN. 


tellect  to  preserve  it  from  wholesale  corruption.  If  the  inspi- 
ration derived  from  the  government  was  of  a  higher  character, 
doubtless  art  would  be  put  on  a  superior  basis.  But  before 
there  can  be  any  radical,  permanent  change  in  its  moral  tone, 
the  heart  of  the  nation  must  be  purified.  Technically  the  school 
has  much  wherewith  to  congratulate  itself.  In  this  direction 
there  has  been  entire  freedom  of  experiment  and  progress.  Im- 
provement since  the  last  century  is  varied  and  rapid.  In  style, 
manner,  and  subject,  the  school  is  versatile  and  accomplished. 
Science  is  largely  put  into  contribution  for  its  material  advance- 
ment. But  overmuch  work  is  prompted  by  vanity  or  desire  of 
gain.  Great  names  are  seen  to  grow  careless  of  their  reputa- 
tions, so  that  their  purses  are  filled.  Above  all,  the  vice  of  paint- 
ing "  de  chicy^  indifferent  to  truth  for  the  sake  of  a  transient 
effect,  obtains.  In  treating  thus  of  a  school  whose  annual  ex- 
hibitions number  new  works  by  thousands,  the  generalization  is 
necessarily  broad,  and  the  coloring  shown  is  of  the  mass.  But 
continued  familiarity  with  it  convinces  me  that  these  observa- 
tions are  in  the  main  just. 

Desgoffe,  the  painter  of  still  life,  for  thorough  imitation  of  jew- 
els, tapestries,  objects  of  art,  and  precious  things  in  general,  — 
he  never  wastes  time  on  things  vulgar,  —  excels  even  Dutchmen. 
Perfect  in  design,  truthful  in  color,  finished  to  microscopic  ex- 
actness of  detail,  he  leaves  the  spectator  nothing  to  desire  in 
these  respects.  But  it  is  unsatisfactory  painting.  The  impres- 
sion is  of  intense  labor  and  Chinese  profitless  endurance  at  imita- 
tion. There  is  no  vital  sense  of  the  things  given.  They  are 
flat,  hard-polished,  dumb  counterfeits.  Philippe  Rousseau,  in 
the  same  line,  with  a  freer  brush  restores  the  consciousness  of  the 
things  themselves  to  us,  which  is  a  more  genuine  triumph. 

Fromentin's  ambition  has  led  him  to  hitherto  untrodden 
fields.  His  observation  is  broad  and  felicitous.  He  transfers 
Arab  life,  wild  and  picturesque,  to  his  canvases.  We  enjoy  the 
freedom  of  the  desert,  and  rejoice  at  escaping  the  confinement 
and  artifice  of  the  studio.  Decamps  brought  back  from  the 
East  a  mystic  sense  of  its  coloring  and  antiquity,  solemn  and 
magnificent  in  his  profoundest  work,  partaking  of  the  feeling 
of  prophecy;  a  seer's  intuition  into  its  latent  meaning.  The 
poetry  also  of  the  Orient  possessed  his  brush.  Not  so  with 
Fromentin.  His  pulses  beat  quick  music  to  its  surrounding 
life.  He  sees  its  untamable  activity  of  nomad  existence; 
the  splendid  development  that  it  bestows  upon  the  phys- 


DEMOCRATIC  ART  OF  FRANCE. 


265 


ical  man ;  its  modern  realistic  aspect  on  its  bright  and  story- 
telling side.  The  ringing  gallop  of  his  high-bred  Arab  horses, 
obedient  to  the  sympathetic  action  of  their  sheik  riders  as  they 
pursue  their  chase,  are  vividly  given.  There  is  no  unworthy 
trick  of  pencil  or  straining  after  effect,  but  conscientious,  rapid, 
and  telling  painting.  Something  is  wanting  in  his  qualities  of 
atmosphere,  which  is  apt  to  be  thick  and  unbreathable,  and 
of  his  still  water,  which  too  much  resembles  ice,  but  these  are 
deficiencies  scarcely  felt  in  the  healthy  ensemble  of  his  work. 

Another  class  is  also  seeking  truth  in  a  quite  new  direction, 
taking  themes  from  common  and  domestic  life.  The  affections, 
interests,  feelings,  and  realities  of  the  people  are  its  choice. 
If  it  has  taken  the  French  school  two  centuries  to  compre- 
hend the  value  of  Nature  as  a  teacher,  it  has  also  taken  it 
equally  long  to  find  out  there  was  a  people  to  paint  for,  and  to 
supply  its  easels  with  topics  homely  in  most  part  but  every  way 
more  honest  and  wholesome  than  those  to  which  it  had  been 
devoted  ever  since  it  had  had  an  existence.  This  new  phase  is 
democratic,  just  as  that  of  Baudry  and  Winterhalter  is  aristo- 
cratic. The  demoralizing  pettiness  and  falsity  of  the  one,  born 
of  the  self-indulgence  and  blase  existence  of  fashion,  is  now  off- 
set by  the  natural  sentiments  and  genuine  sympathies  of  the 
other,  based  upon  the  broad  foundation  of  the  lives  of  those 
who  constitute  the  real  strength  of  the  nation  ;  a  late  but  neces- 
sary recognition  of  their  being.  In  this  recent  phase  of  paint- 
ing, which  may  be  called  the  domestic-genre,  the  French  have 
lifted  their  art  much  above  that  which  responds  to  it  in  the 
Dutch  school.  Its  delight  was  in  exhibiting  the  vulgar  triumph 
of  riches  and  the  coarse  pleasures  of  the  poor.  But  Frere, 
Merle,  H.  Browne,  Millet,  and  their  followers,  with  finer  taste  and 
purer  feeling,  take  a  higher  view  of  humanity.  Avoiding  the 
sensual  and  frivolous  they  rely  upon  the  better  instincts,  senti- 
ments, and  affections  to  attract  sympathy  and  admiration.  We 
need  not,  however,  mistake  them  for  philanthropists  or  philoso- 
phers. They  simply  understand  their  times  better  than  other 
artists,  and  seek  their  motives  partly  from  sympathy  and  partly 
because  of  their  novelty  and  freshness.  At  bottom,  however,  it 
is  a  concession  which  the  growing  democratic  spirit  of  the  na- 
tion has  exacted  of  its  vitiated,  aristocratic  art.  Unspeakable 
good  it  might  do  could  it  attain  that  purity  of  purpose  which 
would  lead  it  to  devote  itself  to  the  cause  of  the  lowly  and  un- 
fortunate ;  seeking  to  enlist  society  at  large  in  the  work  of 


266 


MILLET. 


amelioration  of  those  social  and  civil  evils  which  are  at  once  the 
seed  and  the  fruit  of  human  injustice.  Art,  like  literature,  can 
do  good  work  in  this  direction.  But  to  effect  this  the  artist 
must  have  a  worthier  aim  than  merely  to  render  local  truth  for 
the  sake  of  the  picturesque  or  an  effective  tableau,  leaving  the 
heart  untouched  and  the  mind  uninstructed.  Genre  of  this 
character  destroys  living  art  by  replacing  it  with  the  lifeless. 
The  volatile  temperament  of  the  French  race  causes  a  fear  that 
the  present  promise,  like  a  temporary  fashion,  may  pass  without 
leaving  any  permanent  impression. 

Unfortunately  Frere,  Merle,  and  Henrietta  Browne  are  not 
colorists.  They  have  not  the  ability  to  reproduce  the  mood  or 
feeling  which  underlies  their  subjects.  To  imitate  local  color, 
rendering  blue  for  blue,  red  for  red,  making  shadow  and  gra- 
dation transparent  and  correct,  is  clever  work,  but  it  does  not 
of  itself  infuse  sentiment  and  speech  into  the  painting.  The 
average  coloring  of  these  artists  is  unsympathetic  and  meaning- 
less. Browne  is  strong  but  heavy.  Their  merits  are  chiefly 
confined  to  motives  and  design.  Hence  photographs  and  en- 
gravings give  a  much  higher  idea  of  them  than  their  pictures. 
Jules  Breton.  Julcs  Brctou  and  Millet,  however,  are  born  color- 
ists.  In  choice  of  subjects  Millet  is  a  realist,  but  a 
poet  in  his  management  of  color.  His  manner  is  broad,  vig- 
orous, and  impassioned  in  a  low  key.  He  is  in  sympathy  with 
the  work  of  peasants  and  hard  labor  of  every  sort,  as  was 
Troyon  with  field-toil  and  kine  —  also  a  true  son  of  the  earth, 
powerful  in  design  and  weighty  in  expression,  his  color  giving 
emphasis  to  his  thought  and  inciting  the  imagination  of  the 
spectator.  Millet's  style  suggests  greater  qualities  than  he  ac- 
tually possesses.  Nevertheless  he  is  a  man  of  mark,  and  suc- 
ceeds in  impressing  his  own  nature  deeply  on  his  pictures. 

With  less  force  of  imagination  and  a  less  decisive  sweep  of 
the  brush,  Jules  Breton  has  more  refinement,  equal  simplicity 
and  breadth  of  composition,  greater  delicacy  of  taste,  and  a 
higher  purpose  to  his  art.  It  lacks  that  complete  fusion,  and 
low,  tender  harmony  of  tints  which  makes  Millet's  work  always 
serene  and  sometimes  solemn  in  feeling,  but  excels  in  light  and 
atmosphere.  His  "  Evening  "  at  the  Luxembourg  might  readily 
be  mistaken  for  a  picture  by  Millet,  it  is  so  largely  treated  and  so 
closely  toned  down  to  his  standard.  But  the  pensiveness  and 
subtle  concentration  of  light  upon  the  central  interest  of  the 
composition  are  markedly  his  own  qualities.    Jules  Breton  is  a 


JULES  BRETON. 


267 


lyric  poet  of  no  common  cast.    His  "  Summer's  Evening  "  is 
a  masterpiece  in  a  vein  of  feeling  usual  to  him  but  rare  in  any 
school,  and  which  honors  human  nature  wherever  it  exists. 
Millet  appears  best  satisfied  when  he  has  come  up  to  his  execu- 
tive standard  of  painting.    Breton  does  not  find  that  enough. 
He  has  in  reserve  a  soul  that  must  likewise  have  its  fitting 
word.    The  "  Summer's  Evening  "  is  a  simple  composition,  quiet 
and  strong  as  truth  itself.    Peasant  women  have  just  ceased 
their  labors  of  haymaking,  and,  warned  by  the  setting  sun 
which  covers  them  as  with  an  atmosphere  of  celestial  hope, 
have  clustered  together  preparatory  to  going  to  their  homes. 
Amid  the  sweet-scented  hay -cocks,  there  stand,  like  priestesses  of 
the  harvest  about  to  offer  up  an  evening  hymn,  two  mature 
women  resting  on  their  rakes,  stalwart  yet  feminine  figures, 
with  the  possibilities  of  the  Madonna  in  their  sexhood.  Beside 
them  a  wrinkled  grandmother  with  sinews  hardened  by  a  long  life 
of  field  toil ;  a  wearied  mother  nursing  her  new-born  infant ; 
and  a  fair  young  girl,  overcome  by  the  heat,  is  sleeping  on  a 
pile  of  fresh-mown  grass,  soothed  by  the  hum  of  the  twilight 
insects:  these  make  up  the  central  picture.    In  the  distance 
are  seen  their  rude  homes.    The  figures,  costumes,  and  land- 
scape are  closely  drawn  after  nature.    The  painting,  modelling, 
and  particularly  the  management  of  light,  are  of  high  order. 
But  these  merits  are  its  least  recommendation.    An  aroma  of 
a  summer's  sunset  floats  on  the  quiet  evening  air.    The  fra- 
grance of  meadow  flowers  and  new  hay  mingles  with  human 
sympathies  and  hopes,  as  the  last  glow  of  daylight  brightens 
those  silent  figures  whose  story  creeps  into  our  hearts.  But 
the  chord  which  vibrates  deepest  is  the  brooding  sadness, 
mingled  with  that  inquiring  look  towards  the  sinking  sun,  as  if 
labor  asked  to  know  its  future.    Must  it  always  be  thus  ?  it 
seems  to  inquire  of  God.    Those  overworked,  strong-limbed 
peasants  may  not  feel  so  in  their  native  fields,  but  Breton 
makes  us  anticipate  the  pertinent  question :  whether  a  poor 
woman's  lot  shall  always  continue  to  be  an  incessant  round  of 
hard  manual  toil  in  civilized  France  ? 

Breton's  types  of  figures  are  uncommonly  good.  There  is  no 
trace  of  vulgarity,  such  as  Millet  yields  to.  Neither  are  they 
idealized  beyond  the  limits  that  Nature  herself  permits  under  the 
artist's  chosen  conditions.  Unless  Breton  was  refined  as  well 
as  truthful  he  could  not  plead  so  effectively  as  he  does  for  hu- 
manity.    He  demands  of  the  spectator  to  respect  labor,  the 


268 


LAMB  RON'S  "  VIRGIN  J 


while  making  the  landscape  lovely  in  sentiment  as  well  as  nat- 
ural in  features. 

Before  speaking  of  the  landscapists  proper,  1  have  to  record 
another  example  of  sincere  work  after  an  original  manner  in  a 
semi-symbolic,  semi-realistic  painting  of  the  "  Virgin  and  the 
Infant  Jesus,"  by  Lambron,  a  scholar  of  Flandrin.  The  motive, 
taken  from  the  apocryphal  Evangile  of  the  Young  Jesus,  reads, 
"  As  the  Virgin  rested  herself  in  the  fields  with  Jesus,  the  birds 
and  animals  came  and  gazed  upon  the  divine  child."  The  pic- 
ture is  flat,  wants  atmosphere  and  shadow ;  lines  of  drapery  are 
somewhat  heavy,  and  there  is  overmuch  rigidity  of  posture. 
But  its  merits  are  strikingly  novel.  It  is  firmly  painted,  in 
clear,  pure,  bright  colors,  as  the  religious-minded  Lorenzo  da 
Credi  was  wont  to  paint,  large  and  simple  in  composition,  the 
design  and  tone  in  keeping  with  the  motive.  In  the  distance 
are  the  towers  of  an  oriental  town.  A  steep,  green  hill-side, 
rising  to  a  sharply  defined  horizon,  occupies  the  chief  part  of 
the  picture.  In  the  centre  is  a  solitary  tree.  The  masses  are 
broadly  indicated,  according  to  the  fifteenth  century  practice  of 
Lambron's  purists,  and  the  accessories  beautifully  finished. 

"Virgin."  Xhc  Virgin  reclines  amid  a  bed  of  flowers,  with  her 
infnnt  sitting  in  front,  watching  the  birds  and  animals  that  are 
divinely  attracted  towards  Him  by  the  power  of  his  love  to  draw 
all  things  to  itself.  Jesus  has  the  forecasting  expression,  in- 
structive of  his  final  sacrifice,  which  the  great  religious  masters 
give  Him  even  while  in  his  mother's  arms,  and  is  devoutly  and 
seriously  treated  in  all  respects,  his  type  of  figure  being  noble. 
But  the  great  success  is  the  Virgin.  To  avoid  repeating  the 
time-worn  effigies  of  past  art  in  returning  to  a  field  trodden  by 
thousands  of  artists  during  sixteen  centuries,  was  in  itself  not 
any  easy  thing.  Lambron  accomplishes  more.  To  the  barren, 
religious  art  of  the  nineteenth  century,  he  gives  a  fresh  and 
pure  type  of  the  Madonna :  stately  and  loving,  every  instinct 
of  woman  in  subjection  to  a  holy  will,  without  ascetic  draw- 
back ;  an  intellectual,  free,  self-controlled  woman,  fit  to  bring 
forth  a  Redeemer. 

Contrast  this  solitary  example  of  sound  religious  art  with 
the  vapid  plagiarisms  at  third  hand  of  Signol,  who  aims  at 
resuscitating  the  emptiness  of  Poussin  and  Le  Sueur,  or  the 
"  Expulsion  of  Adam  and  Eve  from  Paradise,"  by  Carbarel, 
whose  ruffianly  figures  and  sugary,  meretricious  painting,  al- 
though done  with  masterly  dash,  are  a  sardonic  grimace  at 


THE  PAINTER  OF  UGLINESS. 


269 


things  sacred,  and  only  adapted  to  a  "  Biche  aux  Bois  "  audi- 
ence. This  species  of  levity  and  mockery  is  so  spontaneous 
and  general  in  much  of  the  French  treatment  of  serious  sub- 
jects as  to  seem  unconsciously  done,  so  far  as  sacrilege  or  dis- 
respect is  positively  intended.  But  the  spiritual  callousness 
that  prompts  it,  be  it  grounded  in  carelessness  or  malice,  is  fatal 
to  all  serious  art. 

The  French  school  is  constantly  going  to  antipodal  extremes. 
If  Lambron's  picture  may  be  considered  the  herald  of  something 
new,  elevated,  and  beautiful,  we  find  his  opposite  in  Manet,  the 
painter-in-chief  of  Ugliness,  which  in  sincere  self-delusion  he 
exalts  into  a  worship.  It  seems  to  be  a  fixed  principle  with 
him  to  make  the  most  promising  subjects  for  beauty  —  as  his 
"  Olympia,"  for  instance,  which  motive  a  Titian  or  Correggio 
would  have  transformed  into  a  masterpiece  of  aesthetic  joy  — 
the  combination  of  all  that  is  most  disagreeable  in  painting. 
This  abnormal  picture  was  exhibited  in  the  Salon  of  1865, 
much  to  the  wonderment  and  disgust  of  the  many  and  to  the 
admiration  of  a  choice  few,  whose  tastes  were  as  eccentric  as 
the  artist's.  "  Olympia  "  was  naked,  but  as  her  flesh  was  of  the 
hue  of  green  meat,  there  was  nothing  corrupting  to  the  public 
morals  in  the  gross  display  of  her  flaccid  charms.  She  was  of  no 
mundane  type  of  feature  or  figure.  Her  form  was  coarser,  if  pos- 
sible, than  a  Tierra  del  Fuegian  belle's.  A  negress  stood  grin- 
ning in  the  background,  and  a  witch-cat  with  her  black  back  up, 
in  the  foreground.  These  accessories  gave  a  grotesque  hideous- 
ness  to  the  whole.  Yet  there  were  indications  of  talent  and  a 
certain  spotty  force  of  splashy  contrasts  of  coloring,  which  might 
be  trained  to  better  work.  Manet  is  one  of  the  eccentricities 
of  modern  art,  as  Whistler  is  another  but  better  vaiiety,  induced 
by  the  popular  love  of  the  sensational  and  extravagant.  Wasted 
talent  and  perversity  of  taste  of  this  kind  tends  to  bring  art  into 
ridicule.  Frequently  it  outrages  the  moral  sentiments,  as  is  done 
by  Manet's  companion  picture  to  "  Olympia,"  "  Jesus  insulted 
by  Soldiers,"  an  exhibition  of  ribald  ferocity,  united  to  brutal 
coarseness  of  brush.  Ribot's  style  of  religious  composition  is 
less  objectionable,  because  he  models  better  and  paints  sincerely 
upon  a  dark  unrefined  key  of  his  own  in  keeping  with  his 
gloomy  subjects  and  forcible  style.  His  "  St.  Sebastian  "  has  none 
of  the  aspect  of  the  handsome  martyr  that  tradition  makes 
him,  but  is  a  burly,  muscular  Spanish  smuggler,  whose  gaping 
wounds  are  cared  for  by  monks  of  the  same  rough  type.    It  is 


270 


FRENCH  LANDSCAPE. 


not  wise  to  revive  the  ascetic  ferocity  of  the  Ribera  and  Carra- 
vaggio  school,  but  if  intended  as  a  protest  against  the  prevailing 
meretricious  pretty,  it  is  not  without  use. 

There  has  been  no  serious  attempt  at  landscape  painting  in  a 
realistic  sense  before  the  present  generation.  Indeed,  landscape 
art  proper  is  a  modern  idea.  Tlie  heroic  landscape  of  the  Pous- 
sinites,  besides  being  only  an  offshoot  of  the  later  Bolognese 
school,  had  little  real  nature  in  it,  but  was  like  epic  poems 
of  the  Homeric  order,  or  nature  transcendentalized  to  fit  the 
pseudo-classical  tastes  of  the  studio.  Neither  did  the  weak, 
pale  backgrounds  of  the  Louis  XV.  time  represent  nature  with 
any  greater  fidelity,  or  pretend  to  aught  else  than  to  give  suitable 
localities  for  aristocratic  picnics  and  lascivious  playgrounds  for  the 
ribboned  and  satin-clad  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  of  the  Wat- 
teau  fabrication.  David  and  his  pupils  were  possessed  with  the 
classic  disrelish  or  indifference  to  it.  Consequently  it  makes  no 
show  with  them.  Even  now  there  is  no  extended  hearty  liking 
of  the  landscape  among  the  French,  as  in  England  and  America. 
That  which  exists  is  narrow  in  taste,  confined  chiefly  to  the  pic- 
turesque, or  the  flat  and  low,  —  fields,  pastures,  and  orchards  be- 
ing the  favorite  subjects.  There  is  some  fancy  but  not  much  gen- 
uine poetry  in  this  feeling.  It  is  in  the  main  associated  with 
kiue,  fatness,  and  productiveness.  Few  beside  Fromentin  and 
Decamps  travel  to  the  East  in  quest  of  more  knowledge  and  a 
wider  range  of  motives.  There  is  no  counterpart  here  to  the 
enterprise  of  the  English :  no  thorough  students  like  Turner, 
untiring  in  search  of  artistic  truth,  and  cosmopolite  in  his  love 
of  nature.  Still  less  do  we  find  an  ambition  like  the  American, 
which  sends  its  students  to  Labrador  and  the  Arctic  regions,  to 
study  icebergs  and  polar  scenery,  or  takes  them  to  the  hottest 
tropics,  exploring  the  Andes,  the  Cordilleras,  and  the  valleys  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  in  quest  of  the  strange,  grand,  and  beau- 
tiful. In  French  art  there  is  scant  recognition  of  mountains. 
The  ocean  is  no  better  known.  There  are  many  pictures  in 
which  what  is  intended  for  the  sea  is  introduced.  But  can  any- 
thing be  more  unlike  its  slumberous  repose  or  tempestuous  wrath 
than  the  viscid  absurdities  of  Gericault,  Gudiu,  and  their  fol- 
lowers ?  L'Hariden  gives  something  of  its  sentiment  in  the  long- 
drawn  breaths  of  its  playful  moods,  as  it  tosses  and  foams  on  the 
beach-sands.  Distance,  a  receding  horizon,  and  liquidity,  are  to 
be  found  in  the  picture  referred  to.  Ordinarily  a  French  marine 
painter's  idea  of  a  gale  is  wholly  of  the  perpendicular  order. 


NATURE  RESENTS  TOYING. 


271 


He  piles  droll  masses  of  gutta-percha  waves,  literally  mountains 
high  in  his  canvas,  performing  gymnastic  exploits  which  would 
bring  down  the  applause  of  the  circus,  but  which  have  nothing 
in  common  with  Nature's  movements.  When  the  maniacal  and 
tragic  are  not  essayed,  the  artist  subsides  into  the  melo-dramatic, 
or  superfine. 

A  fertile  source  of  this  incongruity  is  due  to  Parisian  central- 
ization. Being  the  sole  arbitress  of  fame  and  fortune,  it  has 
come  at  last  to  supersede  nature  in  its  influence  over  art.  The 
ideas  of  the  masses  on  most  subjects  come  from  the  theatres. 
Sacred  history  itself  is  travestied  to  amuse,  as  is  evinced  by  the 
popular  drama  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  with  its  twelve  great  spec- 
tacles of  the  Fall  of  the  Angels,  Hell,  Paradise,  Death  of  Abel, 
Divine  Justice,  Children  of  Cain,  the  Deluge,  and  like  tableaux, 
in  which  are  introduced  pluie  naturelle  et  effet  liydrojpatique^^ 
invented  and  patented  by  M.  Delaporte,  one  Mr.  Dumaine  fill- 
ing the  role  of  Satan. 

At  the  Robin  Theatre,  the  people  are  shown,  according  to 
the  advertisements,  how  the  "  ocean  is  formed,  its  mysterious 
depths,  its  convulsions,  phenomena,  productions,  habitants,  sub- 
marine panorama  all  over  the  globe,"  nightly  by  gas-light. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  proof  of  the  Parisian  habitude 
of  taking  their  conceptions  of  nature  and  life  from  the  stage. 
How  tempting  to  the  artist  to  be  instructed  and  amused  at  once 
without  going  out  of  his  Eden.  "-Natural  rain  "  too,  patented, 
under  the  roof,  warranted  not  to  wet  !  What  an  advantage  to 
have  the  ocean  brought  to  him  for  one  franc,  he  comfortably 
seated  exploring  its  phenomena  ! 

Nature  resents  toying.  To  know  her  we  must  join  hands 
with  her.  But  give  up  the  town  for  the  country  for  the  purpose 
of  honest  study,  is  what  few  Frenchmen  are  equal  to.  Even 
for  the  finest  illustrations  of  their  own  beautiful  river  scenery 
and  their  landscape  at  large,  they  are  indebted  to  the  enterprise 
of  English  artists.  What  can  be  learned  of  the  sea,  in  a  few 
sultry  weeks  spent  at  a  channel  port,  or  of  the  land  in  a  cursory 
ramble  after  subjects,  to  be  worked  up  into  landscapes  within  the 
walls  of  city  studios  ?  Instead  of  seeking  the  variety  of  na- 
ture in  its  own  haunts,  they  pick  up  a  few  of  her  most  obvious 
truths  which  are  fettered  into  theoretical  painting  —  for  the 
French  artist  is  much  given  to  theory  in  regard  to  nature  —  or 
used  at  random  cMcr  Such  is  the  ordinary  practice. 
Hence    the  weakness  of  their  landscape-art ;   and  if  strong, 


272 


LAMBINET, 


its  narrow  limits  and  monotonous  expression.  The  talent  and 
science  of  French  landscapists,  if  supported  by  an  equal  feeling 
and  sincerity  of  purpose,  would  place  the  school  on  a  firm  and 
The  Land-  ^"o^  footing.  In  the  degree  that  this  is  done  the  re- 
scapists.  suits  are  encouraging.  A  few  men  have  begun  to  find 
the  right  paths.  The  French  people  should  be  grateful  to  Lam- 
binet,  Daubigny,  Auguste  Bonheur,  Theodore  Rousseau,  Diaz, 
and  Corot  for  opening  new  sources  of  happiness  by  introducing 
them  for  the  first  time  to  genuine  landscape-art. 

Bonheur  is  a  hearty  realistic  painter,  fresh  in  color,  healthful 
in  feeling,  with  an  out-door  consciousness  of  work  about  his  pic- 
tures, not  imaginative,  inclined  to  the  literal,  but  possessing  the 
ability  —  in  which  his  sister  is  deficient  —  of  giving  vitality  to 
his  work. 

Lambinet  is  a  man  of  less  power,  but  in  his  limited  choice  of 
lowland  scenery,  natural  and  simple ;  having  a  refined  taste  and 
defined  execution,  suggesting  details  by  emphasis  of  brush 
rather  than  by  accurate  finish.  He  fills  his  pictures  with 
clear,  bright  light,  rivalling  Nature's  tones  as  fully  as  pigments 
may.  But  it  is  a  hazardous  process,  and  no  way  so  satisfactory 
as  the  lower  tone  of  Corot,  whose  treatment  of  light  is  unequalled. 
Those  who  follow  Lambinet  in  this  respect  would  do  well  to  re- 
call Leonardo's  maxim  in  regard  to  pure  white,  "  Use  it  as  if  it 
were  a  gem."  Lambinet's  landscape,  although  ever  repeating 
himself,  is  fresh  and  fragrant,  like  a  bouquet  of  flowers. 

Daubigny  works  in  the  same  vein,  but  he  is  weaker  and 
prone  to  superficiality.  The  greens  of  all  of  these  men  are  well 
felt,  showing  the  direct  influence  of  nature.  Rousseau  is  a  more 
subtle  artist.  His  coloring  is  deeper  and  richer,  and  he  recog- 
nizes sentiment  in  things,  while  Lambinet  and  Daubigny  stop 
at  the  external  features.  Their  matter-of-fact  work  is  admirable, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  like  any  well-given  description  ;  but  Rousseau 
adds  the  poetical  sense  to  his.  This  is  also  true  of  the  versatile, 
unequal,  impetuous  Diaz,  a  brilliant  colorist  by  blood,  so  much  so 
as  to  obscure  design,  but  charming  in  his  genre-landscape  motives, 
in  which  he  introduces  little  children,  lovely  women,  or  clas- 
sical nymphs,  amorini^  or  whatever  best  affords  him  scope  for  his 
rich  flest-tints,  in  contrast  with  magnificently  colored  draperies 
or  the  deep  greens  and  browns  of  vegetation.  His  fancy  is 
peculiarly  delicate  and  playful,  not  serious,  which  is  a  defect,  be- 
cause the  want  of  earnestness  of  purpose  seems  to  have  pre- 
vented him  from  realizing  complete  returns  of  his  uncommon 
promise. 


COROT. 


273 


Corot  stands  apart.  Critics  call  him  a  master.  In  ^^^^^ 
some  respects  he  is  one,  who  was  much  needed  in  his 
school,  or  indeed  in  any  other,  as  a  counter-weight  to  the  prev- 
alent materialism.  He  is  no  profuse  colorist.  Browns,  pale 
greens,  and  silvery  grays,  with  an  occasional  shade  of  purple  or 
a  bright  spot  of  intenser  colors  to  represent  flowers  or  drapery, 
are  his  reliance.  Vegetation  or  figures,  which  he  uses  sparsely, 
are  thin  masses  or  washes  of  color,  with  only  a  shadowy  resem- 
blance to  the  things  indicated.  But  Corot  is  a  poet.  Nature 
is  subjective  to  his  mental  vision.  He  is  no  seer,  is  not  profound ; 
but  is  sensitive  and,  as  it  were,  clairvoyant,  seeing  the  spirit 
more  than  the  forms  of  things.  There  is  a  bewitching  mystery 
and  suggestiveness  in  his  apprehension  of  the  landscape,  united 
to  a  pensive  joyousness  and  absorption  of  self  in  the  scene,  that 
is  very  uncommon  in  his  race.  Calame,  who  is  Swiss,  has  it 
in  a  more  robust  way ;  Dor^  also  of  another  kind.  This  ob- 
liviousness of  selfhood  is  an  important  element  in  truly  great 
work.  Corot's  paintings  challenge  no  carping  criticism.  Their 
tendency  is  to  make  one  forget  it  in  tranquil  enjoyment.  They 
fall  upon  the  eye  as  distant  melody  upon  the  ear,  captivating  the 
senses  and  inspiring  the  sentiments.  Contemplation,  too,  and' 
sympathetic  reception  of  Nature's  language  are  quickened  by  his 
compositions.  They  are  no  transcripts  of  scenery,  but  pictures 
of  the  mind.  To  soothe,  to  give  repose,  to  evoke  dreamy  senti- 
ment, such  is  their  mission.  Not  that  there  is  any  peculiarly 
Christian  idea  in  them.  This  spirit  is  rather  pantheistic,  and 
shows  a  sympathy  with  amorini,  nymphs,  and  the  Greek's  de- 
light in  nature  because  of  her  mysterious  beauty  of  sunlight  and 
shadow,  in  a  subdued  way,  as  if  in  the  presence  of  gods.  Corot 
can  never  be  popular  in  France,  for  he  is  too  much  removed 
from  the  common  characteristics  of  the  nation.  He  is  not 
materialistic  enough.  His  solitude  is  too  calm.  His  amorini 
are  not  lusty  or  amorous,  but  flit  through  his  copses  like  ethereal 
butterflies.  Twilights  charm  him  greatly,  always  silvery-toned 
and  bordering  on  the  shadowy  boundary  that  separates  the 
visible  from  the  invisible,  and  suggesting  the  inscrutable.  The 
consummate  success  lies  in  his  management  of  light.  With  him 
it  is  genius.  Nature  knows  herself  in  this  in  his  painting,  as  a 
beautiful  woman  knows  her  face  in  a  glass.  Water,  which  he 
loves  next  to  light,  glimmers  and  sparkles  under  its  rays. 
Shadows  and  reflections  are  alive  with  it.  The  densest  vegeta- 
tion opens  before  it.  Everywhere  light  penetrates  without  re- 
18 


274 


COURBET, 


minder  of  either  brush  or  pigment.  Corot  is  the  painter  of  air ; 
as  great  a  gift  to  art  in  his  manner  as  was  that  of  Claude  of  un- 
veiled sunshine  in  his. 

Antagonistic  in  style  to  Corot,  is  Courbet,  whose  material 
force  is  overwhelming  when  he  chooses.  He  is  the  strongest,  the 
truest,  and  most  satisfying  of  the  realists,  a  Robert  Browning  of 
the  easel.  There  are  no  such  local  greens,  grays,  lights  and 
shadows  as  his ;  no  firmer  sense  of  material  forms  and  uses  of 
things ;  none  more  vigorous  or  more  harmonious  in  his  own 
interpretation  of  nature.  He  puts  the  spectator  in  absolute, 
organic  relationship  to  it.  Courbet's  qualities  are  great,  like 
those  of  Walt  Whitman,  who  is  an  American  Courbet  in  verse ; 
but  the  best  qualities  of  both  are  obscured  or  affrontively  ob- 
truded by  a  sort  of  Titanesque  realism,  which  affects  the  gross 
and  material,  as  it  were,  to  emphasize  their  introspective  view 
into  the  primary  elements  of  nature  and  man.  Each  sings  the 
Earth  earthy,  and  with  such  heartiness  and  comprehension,  as 
to  move  our  imaginations  to  a  muscular  grasp  of  her  stores 
of  enjoyment.  Courbet  at  times  may  be  coarse,  but  his  style, 
compared  with  the  popular  pretty,  is  as  the  uncut  diamond  beside 
the  tinsel  gem.  * 

Dore  is  an  original  genius,  of  a  quality  and  calibre 
widely  differing  from  all  the  preceding  ones.  He 
represents  in  thdir  intensest  degree  the  chief  fundamental  char- 
acteristics of  his  race.  Indeed,  we  must  view  him  as  a  modern 
outbreak  of  the  old  fecund  Gothic  invention,  which  in  mediaeval 
times  delighted  so  hugely  in  the  grotesque,  especially  in  sculpture, 
reckless  of  purity  of  thought  or  fitness  of  application.  The 
ancient  spirit  was  a  serious  one  in  one  sense.  It  did  these  odd 
things  because  it  delighted  in  them.  But  Dore  does  them  from 
levity,  scorn,  and  contempt.  He  likes  them  too,  but  in  another 
way.  His  is  a  strange  genius.  Mediseval  idiosyncrasies  of 
thought  and  belief  are  mingled  with  modern  infidelity  and  jest. 
In  all,  however,  Dore  is  thoroughly  French.  No  other  nation 
would  have  produced  him.  As  well  might  one  look  for  an  Albert 
Durer  or  a  Shakespeare  from  Gallic  stock  as  a  Dore  from  Ger- 
man or  English.  In  one  respect  he  is  antagonistic  to  his  origin. 
There  is  no  sympathy  in  him  for  the  pretty.  The  beautiful  he 
wholly  ignores,  and  with  it  academic  order  and  rule.  His  aes- 
thetic sense  runs  in  a  dark  direction.  He  has  burst  upon  the 
art-world  with  a  prodigality  of  execution  that  overwhelms  it 
with  surprise.    It  is  hazardous  to  undertake  to  analyze  the  gifts 


dor6. 


275 


of  a  man  who,  at  only  thirty-two  years  of  age,  had  made  nearly 
fifty  thousand  designs  and  won  universal  fame  ;  who  is  cosmo- 
politan in  his  choice  of  subjects ;  as  familiar  with  the  great 
writers  of  England,  Germany,  Italy,  and  Spain,  as  with  his  own, 
and  finally  laid  the  whole  Orient  under  contribution  by  illustrat- 
ing anew  for  the  nineteenth  century  the  Bible.  Moreover  he 
claims  rank  as  a  painter. 

In  this  character  I  will  first  examine  him.  By  instinct  he  is 
a  profound  colorist,  because  his  nature  is  profound,  but  he  has 
not  yet  won  that  mastery  over  materials  which  belongs  only  to 
long  and  steady  practice.  The  qualities  of  mind  and  execution 
which  appear  in  his  designs  are  reproduced  in  his  paintings. 
Color  echoes  his  feeling  or  want  of  it,  as  may  be.  It  is  not 
held  fast  to  local  truth,  but  is  made  an  outlook  of  his  inmost 
motive.  His  "  Spanish  Gypsy  "  exemplifies  his  system.  We 
all  remember  Murillo's  lousy  boys  with  their  dirt-ingrained 
skins,  rags,  and  filthy  occupations.  His  coloring  was  toned  to 
the  dirtiness  of  the  subject,  and  by  itself  would  have  been  dis- 
agreeable. But  Murillo  made  the  life-giving  sunlight,  the 
Father's  gift  to  rich  and  poor  alike,  fall  full  upon  his  beggars. 
It  is  their  saving  grace ;  all  that  wins  our  sympathy  comes  of  it. 
But  Dore's  proclivities  are  so  intense  that  his  art  must  run  to  ex- 
tremes. His  wretched  "  Gypsy  "  has  no  beauty  except  a  dusky 
olive  complexion,  and  that  harsh  in  tone.  Her  rags  are  loath- 
somely gathered  about  her.  Unmitigated  vagabondism  and 
pitiless  poverty  are  stamped  upon  her  entire  figure  as  she  leans 
in  hardened  endurance  against  a  stone  wall,  sunless  and  cora- 
panionless.  The  quality  of  coloring  is  literally  filthy,  as  is  the 
subject :  coarse  beyond  description,  and  intensified  by  an  em- 
phatic crimson  spot  on  her  bosom  ;  a  bit  of  red  drapery  in 
showing,  but  signifying  the  lust  of  sense  or  crime  at  heart.  No 
good  comes  of  such  art. 

If  the  predominant  trait  of  Delacroix  was  physical  force,  that 
of  Dore  is  fiendish  horror.  That  which  devils  most  enjoy  he 
most  heartily  depicts.  Added  to  this  is  a  fecundity  of  invention 
and  a  darksome  flow  of  creative  invention  which  places  him  the 
foremost  of  his  terrible  kind.  Even  Dante,  reared  in  mediasval 
notions  of  theology  and  politics,  finds  some  springs  of  tenderness 
and  always  of  faith,  in  his  soul  ;  but  Dore,  in  translating  his 
"  Inferno  "  into  pictorial  French,  discards  all  humanity,  and  pre- 
sents the  horrors  of  the  Dantesque  imagery  in  forms  more  appal- 
ling than  the  original.  The  advanced  theories  of  peace  and  good- 


276 


DORE. 


will  to  men  of  our  century  make  no  impression  on  him.  Before 
his  advent  we  had  no  entirely  adequate  conception  of  diabolism. 
Other  interpreters  of  Dante,  Orgagna  and  Michael  Angelo,  for 
instance,  had  given  us  glimpses  of  its  features  in  a  grand  way, 
but  it  has  been  reserved  to  Dore  to  let  us  into  its  utter  horror. 
He  finds  in  it  a  satisfaction  akin  in  depth  to  the  intensity  of 
ecstacy  which  prompted  the  celestial  visions  of  Fra  Angelico.  It 
is  no  coldly  studied  design,  but  a  spontaneous  outflow,  like  seeth- 
ing lava.  Alike  remarkable  is  the  unceasing  activity  of  his 
phantom  creations.  They  are  supernaturally  endowed  with 
vitality.  He  transforms  all  nature  into  demoniacal  forces  in 
keeping  with  weird  scenery  evoked  by  his  imagination.  In  the 
"  Wandering  Jew,"  untrammelled  by  necessity  of  illustrating  the 
ideas  of  another,  he  gives  his  own  freer  play.  The  powers  of 
darkness  are  let  loose.  Heaven  itself  catches  the  vindictive 
spirit  of  hell.  This  is  art  undergoing  the  delirium  tremens,  with 
ravings  as  blasphemous  as  they  are  foul  and  hideous.  This  may 
seem  harsh  judgment,  but  an  art  that  distorts  and  misrepresents 
the  divine  attributes,  engendering  hate  or  fear  in  place  of  love 
and  charity,  is  not  one  to  be  dealt  gingerly  with.  A  sen- 
sitive imagination  cannot  look  it  over  without  risk  of  nightmare. 
In  almost  eveiy  sense  it  is  unwholesome  art.  Coupled  with 
the  cruelty  that  enjoys  human  suffering  in  its  most  excruciating 
conditions,  and  peoples  the  world  with  fiends  whose  'bestial 
grotesqueness  of  shape  and  ferocity  of  torment  makes  one  shud- 
der, is  a  coarse  obscenity  and  a  witty  licentiousness,  the  spirituel 
element  in  its  mocking  aspect,  which  comes  naturally  in  such 
company.  The  lascivious-pretty  is  not  found  in  his  compositions. 
Dore  intellect  is  too  deep  for  light  sins.  With  him  there  is  no 
innuendo,  dainty  disguise,  or  tempting  display,  but  plain,  out- 
spoken passion  and  lust  and  indifference  to  virtue.  The  four 
hundred  and  twenty-five  cuts  of  the  "  Contes  Drolatiques  "  form 
a  unique  monument  to  his  brilliant  debauchery  of  design  :  a 
consuming  fire  to  the  weak  in  morals,  a  wonderful  master-work 
of  invention  to  the  well-trained  brain  which  can  appreciate  its 
wit  and  satire  without  being  contaminated  by  its  smut,  and  an 
object  of  disgust  to  the  one-sided  pious  mind. 

Dore  seems  to  have  faith  of  no  kind.  His  mental  vision  ex- 
plores behind  the  material  veil  of  creation  as  freely  as  his  natural 
eye  sees  the  moving  panorama  around  it.  But  the  world  seen 
and  unseen  is  to  him  simply  a  field  from  which  to  cull  motives 
for  his  extraordinary  powers.    He  belongs  to  no  fixed  time. 


THE  GENIUS  OF  DOR^:. 


277 


The  mediaeval  spirit  of  the  grotesque  is  as  fresh  within  him  as 
the  sense  of  modern  caricature.  The  supernatural  element  an- 
nihilates time,  making  him  as  much  at  home  in  the  scenes  of 
Oriental  life,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible,  as  if  he  had  passed  them 
in  actual  review.  But  there  is  no  religious  sentiment  in  it.  Its 
force  is  expended  on  the  graphic-realistic  or  the  imaginative 
creative  of  the  supernal  cast.  A  fine  example  of  the  latter  is 
the  seven-headed  beast  of  the  Apocalypse  rising  out  of  the  sea. 
The  mystical  Scriptures  are  his  most  fitting  sphere  of  invention. 
He  excels  also  whenever  free  to  compose  wholly  from  his  im- 
agination on  its  dark  side.  The  Deluge,  Crucifixion,  Passage 
of  the  Red  Sea,  Lives  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  are  the  topics 
on  which  his  energy,  originality,  variety,  and  picturesque  large- 
ness of  loosely  jointed  composition  are  best  displayed.  He  is 
weak  and  conventional  in  those  based  directly  upon  the  simpler 
religious  sentiments.  Fra  Angelico  could  not  paint  a  devil ; 
Dore  cannot  draw  a  saint.  His  illustrations  of  the  Bible  are  a 
record  of  his  strongest  and  weakest  qualities.  He  is  not  many- 
sided.  But  in  his  own  wide  field,  including  the  darker  aspect 
of  creation,  natural  and  supernal,  and  up  to  a  certain  point  the 
picturesque  and  sublime  in  realistic  action,  he  is  supreme.  The 
most  and  almost  the  sole  humane  sympathy  he  exhibits  is  a  cer- 
tain liking  for  children,  but  this  only  in  their  dubious  sports. 
He  is  a  pitiless  destroyer  of  the  humane  and  refined  in  general. 
His  intensest  delight  is  got  from  terror,  suffering,  horror,  jesting,  ^ 
and  dishonor.  Perhaps  he  seeks  by  sheer  force  of  caricature 
and  exaggeration  to  carry  the  mind  over  from  vice  to  virtue,  on 
the  principle  that  extremes  meet.  But  it  is  a  dubious  charity 
towards  him  at  the  best,  as,  if  meant,  it  would  be  a  crooked  way 
to  reach  the  good.  There  is  too  evident  pleasure  shown  in  the 
elfish  for  its  own  sake,  contempt  of  mankind,  indulgence  in  the 
scornful,  indecent,  and  satirical,  a  relish  of  ugliness,  and  an  ap- 
petite for  the  loathsomeness  of  disease,  and  pride  in  the  super- 
human fiendish,  to  be  altogether  palliated  by  the  usual  apologies 
for  misdirected  genius.  Dore  makes  love,  pity,  charity,  and 
faith  absurd.  Under  his  influence  one  feels  that  honest  emotions 
or  any  traits  of  common  humanity,  much  less  piety,  are  evidence 
of  weakness  or  nonsense.  The  world  being  an  infernal  bub- 
ble, let  us  laugh  or  sneer;  the  end  will  take  care  of  itself.  If 
this  is  unjust  towards  Dore,  he  has  made  it  the  frequent  lan- 
guage of  his  art. 

How  incapable  he  shows  himself  of  estimating  rightly  the 


278 


THE  GENIUS  OF  DORE. 


character  of  Don  Quixote,  except  in  its  ridiculous  aspect ! 
Look  at  his  design  of  him  when  wounded  and  melancholy  !  Is 
there  anything  of  the  honest,  half-mad  gentleman  that  he  was  in 
that  overdrawn,  battered  face  ?  There  is  some  pathos  in  the 
anatomical  refinement  of  lines  expressive  of  gentle  birth  com- 
bined with  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  patient  sufferer,  and 
we  feel  sure  that  he  is  no  rightly  served  bully,  but  a  true  man, 
who  has  met  with  misfortune,  whether  born  of  his  own  folly  or 
not,  it  cannot  be  told.  But  Dore  twists  the  pathetic  into  the  ab- 
surd. The  "  Don  Quixote,"  however,  contains  much  that  is  very 
good  in  individual  character,  though  that  is  not  the  artist's  strong- 
est point.  His  treatment  of  groups,  and  generalization  of  move- 
ment and  effects,  are  more  masterly. 

As  a  landscapist,  Dore  shows  qualities  of  interpretation  that 
place  him  above  all  others  of  the  school.  Thus  far  we  only 
know  it  by  designs,  especially  those  in  Atala.  But  these  mani- 
fest his  consciousness  of  the  sublime  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
They  are  ideal  compositions  interpenetrated  with  the  gloom  and 
mystery  of  a  nature  torn  by  her  own  wrath,  and  terrified  by  her 
own  mystic  solitude ;  in  general  dissociated  from  man,  or,  when 
associated  with  him,  akin  to  his  fellest  passions,  untamed  and  sav- 
age as  he  was  before  civilization  began.  They  realize  our  con- 
ception of  primal  creation.  There  is  no  caricature  in  them,  but 
a  vast  creative  or  disturbing  sense,  which  makes  and  destroys 
with  equal  facility.  Dore  grasps  the  formative  idea,  and  shapes 
his  creations  to  express  the  animating  feeling.  It  is  organic 
spirit  even  more  than  nature  that  we  see  in  his  designs.  He 
thus  insists  upon  the  highest  triumphs  of  art.  One  who  does 
this  may  not  always  be  or  intend  to  be  perfect  in  drawing,  or 
exact  in  perspective.  If,  like  Dore,  he  works  immensely,  he 
will  often  be  careless  and  superficial.  We  find  him  sometimes 
blundering  in  details,  weak  in  consequence  of  departing  from 
his  immediate  fields  of  strength,  but  almost  always  making  ap- 
parent the  intended  idea  and  artistic  effect.  Dealing  largely 
with  the  supernatural  and  with  caricature,  he  must  exaggerate 
known  forms  or  invent  new,  to  create  the  impressions  he  has  in 
view.  He  cannot  therefore  be  bound  down  to  the  common  rules 
of  realistic  art.  His  success  depends  upon  his  freedom  of  them 
at  will.  The  grotesque,  terrible,  and  striking  in  the  supernat- 
ural or  the  sublime  have  a  law  unto  themselves.  An  artist  who 
can  do  what  Dore  does  in  this  line,  is  capable  of  the  minor  reaches 
of  art.    He  attains  his  aim  by  means  at  the  command  only  of 


THE  MODERN  FRENCH  SCHOOL. 


279 


genius.  His  deficiencies  are  those  of  genius  also,  and  go  to 
prove  his  intrinsic  greatness. 

Dore's  art  is  great.  Is  it  good  ?  It  need  not  be  Christian 
in  a  nice  sense  to  be  this,  but  it  must  be  natural,  truthful,  and 
humane.  It  should  have  also  the  instinct  of  the  beautiful. 
Dore's  art  has  almost  none  of  these  qualities.  Much  of  it  is 
heartless,  sensual,  and  perverse.  It  refuses  to  elevate,  or  instruct, 
or  even  amuse,  except  the  mind,  like  the  art,  be  prone  to  obscene, 
cruel,  or  mocking  levity ;  preferring  to  excite  emotions  which 
have  in  them  little  that  is  pleasurable  or  improving.  The  gen- 
eral tendency  is  to  deepen  and  strengthen  those  proclivities  of 
the  French  school  which  most  require  pruning  and  reforming. 
If  the  Devil  has  ever  created  such  an  office  as  Designer-in- 
chief  to  Hell,  it  is  now  filled  by  Dore. 

To  sum  up,  the  genuine  French  school  of  painting  has  been 
shown  to  be  of  recent  origin.  During  the  past  century,  French 
motives  prevailed ;  but  the  art  itself  was  so  essentially  decorative 
and  trivial,  that  it  deserves  mention  only  in  connection  with  his- 
tory. That  of  the  Revolution  was  founded  chiefly  on  Plutarchian 
ideas,  and  the  examples  of  Italian  masterpieces  brought  to  Paris 
by  Napoleon  I.  It  developed  into  the  "  grand  style,"  which 
proved  only  a  transitory  fashion,  from  want  of  solid  foundation 
in  the  national  character.  As  the  Gallic  tendencies  in  art  came 
to  the  surface  in  consequence  of  freer  latitude  of  thought  and 
action,  the  school  became  divided  into  two  branches.  One,  the 
elder,  was  eclectic  and  theoretical,  basing  itself  more  particu- 
larly on  academic  rules.  Ingres,  Couture,  SchefFer,  Delaroche, 
and  Hippolyte  Flandrin,  as  we  have  seen,  were  its  chief  orna- 
ments. Their  art  was  cosmopolitan  in  principle.  It  has  noth- 
ing distinctively  national  in  it,  except  style.  The  motives  are 
mainly  drawn  from  foreign  sources.  Allegory,  history,  poetry, 
and  religion  are  each  treated  in  a  learned  and  lofty  way.  Like 
the  Latin  tongue,  it  is  universally  understood  by  the  educated ;: 
but,  having  little  in  common  with  the  people  at  large,  it  is  scarcely 
noticed  by  them. 

The  younger  branch,  which  now  overtops  the  elder,  has  a 
broader  foundation.  It  equally  admits  the  value  of  learning, 
has  even  a  more  genuine  aesthetic  sense,  and  further  recognizes 
the  tastes  and  desires  of  the  public,  gives  expression  to  French 
ideas  and  life,  and  makes  itself  intelligible  to  all  classes.  Its 
chief  value  lies  not  so  much  in  what  it  has  already  accom- 
plished as  in  its  promise  to  lead  the  people  into  more  correct 


280  THE  SENSUALISTS  AND  IDEALISTS. 


notions  of  the  relations  of  nature  to  art,  and  of  becoming  their 
mouth-piece  of  civilization.  Perhaps  the  school  has  not  reached 
its  culminating  point.  There  are  symptoms  of  progress.  Genius 
is  rare,  and  talent  common.  Something  is  still  wanted  to  inspire 
the  art-mind  to  nobler  work.  It  has  discovered  the  road  to 
nature,  but  takes  to  its  vices  more  than  its  virtues.  Truth  of 
design  alone  is  not  sufficient.  There  is  an  inferior  as  well  as 
superior  choice  in  motives.  It  depends  upon  the  exercise  of 
the  latter  to  make  art  benefit  a  people.  The  purest  French 
artists  are  sad,  serious  men ;  isolated,  but  scantily  recognized  ; 
not  strong  enough  to  change  the  popular  taste,  and  without  any 
wide-spread  sympathy  to  uphold  them.  Delaroche,  Ary  Schef- 
fer,  and  Flandrin  were  of  this  type.  I  think  Corot  and  Jules 
Breton  must  be  also ;  for  the  faith  of  both,  as  seen  in  their  art, 
has  a  tinge  of  melancholy,  as  if  they,  too,  sorrowed  at  the  public 
indifference  to  its  higher  meaning. 

The  strong  men  are  the  sensualist-realists,  or  meretricious 
idealists,  —  Gerome,  Dore,  Baudry,  Cabanal  —  masters  who  deal 
in  the  wanton,  pretty,  and  external  common ;  finishers  without 
thought,  of  the  Meissonnier  stamp ;  the  decorators,  exhibitors 
of  force  and  spectacular  art  to  glorify  the  nation.  French  criti- 
cism seldom  concerns  itself  with  moral  aspects.  It  is  technical, 
incisive,  spirituel,  descriptive,  and  keen  in  the  external.  An  in- 
quiry into  the  tendency  of  art  on  any  higher  basis  of  investiga- 
tion, evidently  would  be  voted  dull  and  uncalled  for.  A  school 
like  this  is  neither  very  wise  nor  very  good.  Pure  ideas  and 
profound  thoughts,  to  the  intent  to  improve  and  instruct  as  well 
as  to  gratify  the  love  of  the  beautiful,  which  in  itself,  rightly 
viewed,  is  a  moral  quality,  find  but  a  limited  appreciation.  Even 
the  poetry  of  art  is  set  aside  by  the  strong  appetite  for  its  ma- 
terial aspect.  It  must  continue  so  until  there  is  a  moral  and 
intellectual  upheaval  of  society  into  a  loftier  stratum  of  exist- 
ence. The  imperial  government  bestows  a  vast  patronage.  At 
no  period  has  art  been  paid  as  at  present,  unless  it  was  in  the 
times  of  Phidias  and  the  Caesars.  The  magnitude  of  the  works 
ordered  for  public  edifices  is  astonishing.  Frescoes  ai'e  com- 
manded by  acres  in  extent.  One  wall  in  a  court  of  the  Hotel 
des  luvalides  painted  by  M.  Mapin,  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
long,  comprises  twelve  hundred  life-size  figures,  drawn  from  the 
history  of  France.  This  is  one  of  four  on  a  similar  scale.  Horace 
Vernet's  "  Smala  "  occupies  a  canvas  sixty-six  feet  long  by  six- 
teen high.    The  field  and  pay  of  artists  in  France  are  alike  large. 


WHAT  THE  SCHOOL  LACKS. 


281 


In  Italy,  the  best  mural  work  was  done  without  mercenary  stim- 
ulus. Zeal  either  for  religion,  the  country,  or  ambition  to  excel 
prompted  the  Italian  master  to  the  accomplishment  of  those 
great  paintings,  which  have  ever  since  been  a  source  of  instruc- 
tion and  a  stimulus  to  effort  for  all  other  peoples.  Yet  his  pay 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  his  social  position,  were  about  on 
the  level  of  an  artisan's.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the 
elevation  of  French  painting  depends  not  on  money,  fashion,  or 
patronage  of  government.  More  serious  inspiration  is  needed 
to  arouse  it  to  put  forth  energies  and  aspirations  commensurate 
with  the  high  office  it  ought  to  take.  But  until  that  is  gener- 
ated, we  must  take  it  for  what  it  is,  a  brilliant  and  versatile 
school,  devoted  to  little  else  beside  decoration,  entertainment, 
genre-illustration,  and  in  its  present  spirit,  neither  a  wise  nor 
prudent  example  for  others. 


CHAPTER  XL 


FRENCH  SCULPTURE  AND  ARCHITECTURE. 


RENCH  sculpture  demands  but  brief  notice.  Be- 
side painting  it  makes  but  an  indifferent  figure, 
though  much  the  same  in  spirit.  The  earlier 
Renaissant  sepulchral  monuments  retain  something 


of  mediaeval  decorum  of  composition  and  sincerity  of  purpose, 
while  the  sixteenth  century  sculpture,  more  Italian  than 
French,  is  chiefly  illustrated  by  Cellini's  huge  '*  Nymph,"  unat- 
tractive in  pose  and  inelegant  in  outline.  As  the  sculpture  be- 
came more  national,  it  degenerated  from  this  standard.  Goujon's 
"  Diana,"  is  largely  done,  but  looks  like  a  fine  lady  of  the  time 
playing  the  chaste  goddess.  In  nothing  is  there  evidence  of 
true  beauty :  instead,  an  amorous  desire  of  the  pretty-sen- 
sual. 

Pseudo-das-  From  this  time  there  is  a  succession  of  weak, 
sicaiwork.  pgeudo-classical  work  of  the  dainty-pretty  order, 
clinging  to  antique  motives  or  travestying  Christian  notions  and 
personages  into  pagan  garbs,  as  affected  in  sentiment  as  meretri- 
cious in  execution.  Incapacity  of  original  idea  and  treatment 
is  apparent  in  all  the  sculptors,  so  that  there  is  not  much  to 
choose  between  Pilon,  Pradier,  Chaudet,  and  the  rest  of  the 
classicalists,  although  there  is  some  distinction  among  them  in 
manual  dexterity  and  facility  of  composing.  Their  work  has 
the  appearance  of  acting,  not  of  beinff,  like  its  Grecian  proto- 
type. Portrait-statuary  alone  retains  some  real  life,  but  this 
soon  grows  absurd ;  draperies  broken,  confused,  and  mean, 
without  connection  with  the  figure,  which  they  overpower,  be- 
sides wanting  in  grace  and  harmony  of  lines.  In  preceding 
centuries  the  lords  of  the  soil,  when  put  to  sepulchral  sleep, 
were  made  decorous  in  marble  or  bronze.  They  kneel,  repent, 
pray,  recognize  an  authority  diviner  than  theirs,  and  are  costumed 
like  men.  But  the  Louises  of  France,  beginning  with  the 
thirteenth,  changed  all  this.  Royalty  posed  itself  as  divinity, 
though  to  ordinary  eyesight  it  looked  like  a  Jupiter  Scapin. 


ARISTOCRATIC  SCULPTURE. 


283 


It  covered  itself  and  its  creatures  with  decorations,  embroid- 
eries, and  curious  devices,  until  the  ruler  was  lost  in  the  mob  of 
artificial  distinctions  he  had  himself  invented  to  represent  his 
divine  right  and  origin.  Sculpture,  as  one  sees  in  the  Louvre, 
meant  masses  of  laces,  frills,  periwigs,  buckles,  and  robes,  so 
weighty  that  ancient  armor  seems  light  and  cheerful  in  sight  of 
them ;  the  whole  constituting  a  hideous  or  ridiculous  stone 
monster,  painful  to  view  as  art,  and  dispiriting  as  an  exhibition 
of  human  imbecility. 

Between  a.  d.  1620  and  1720,  the  period  of  Pierre  Puget, 
there  is  some  clever  work  partly  influenced  by  the  style  of 
Michael  Angelo  and  in  part  by  the  antique,  scholarly  in  treat- 
ment, after  the  Poussin  manner  in  painting.  It  is  strictly 
aristocratic  sculpture,  —  made  for  a  privileged  caste,  and  af- 
fected by  queens  and  titled  beauties  to  display  such  seductive- 
ness of  limbs  and  bosoms  as  the  sculptor  could  model  for  them, 
and  by  kings  and  nobles  to  ape  the  warrior ;  ordering  the 
heroisms  and  majesty  to  be  carved  in  stone  which  failed  of 
growth  in  their  hearts ;  ideal  humbugs  of  virtue  and  beauty. 
Now  came  the  fashion  of  reducing  the  gods  and  goddesses  of 
Greece  to  statuettes  as  ornaments  for  boudoirs.  What  cour- 
tier-sculptor, after  essaying  to  make  a  Bourbon  into  a  Jupiter, 
would  venture  to  make  Zeus  himself  other  than  a  diminutive 
individual  in  comparison  ?  Houdon,  later,  did  more  justice  to 
the  nude  classical.  His  portrait-busts  also  have  expression ; 
are  Greuze-like  in  character.  In  his  work,  as  in  David's,  one 
sees  a  genuine  love  of  the  antique,  though  the  ecstatic  national 
vanity  of  the  period  perverted  its  application. 

There  is  now  in  France  abundance  of  decorative  and  monu- 
mental sculpture  of  a  fair  quality  and  taste,  and  some  excellent 
realistic  work,  especially  of  animals.  Were  we,  however,  to 
estimate  the  national  intellect  by  the  intellectual  character  of 
the  average  busts  and  portrait-statues  shown  in  the  annual 
expositions  at  Paris,  the  rest  of  the  world  might  fancy  that  the 
French  mind  was  relapsing  into  inanity,  or  had  succumbed  to  a 
passion  for  personal  display  and  the  vanity  of  decoration.  Such 
excellence  as  may  be  detected,  is  mechanical  and  superficial. 
The  rule  is,  no  ideas,  no  serious  work,  no  profound  motives, 
no  regard  for  high  art,  nothing  to  indicate  a  desire  to  place 
sculpture  in  its  rightful  position  as  the  incarnation  of  Mind. 

In  general,  however,  the  sculpture,  being  decorative  Modem 
in  character  and  motive,  appears  to  better  advantage  -P'*"*- 


284 


THE  NEW  PARTS. 


seen  in  mass  with  architecture  than  by  itself.  In  some  respects 
the  Paris  of  the  third  Napoleon  is  considered  to  be  the  model 
city  of  civilization,  especially  for  its  architectural  appearance. 
Examine  it  an  instant.  Old  Paris  is  erased.  A  few  grand 
monuments  remain,  but  restored  much  as  a  time-consumed  belle 
revives  her  color  by  enamelling,  and  replaces  missing  or  dilapi- 
dated parts  of  her  frame  with  such  artifices  as  the  repairers  of 
the  human  body  can  invent.  The  ancient  landmarks  which 
surrounded  them  have  been  swept  away  like  so  much  street 
garbage.  Never  has  there  been  so  complete  a  change  in  so 
short  a  time  in  the  aspect  of  a  city,  unless  the  transforming  of 
Rome  from  brick  into  marble  by  Augustus  equalled  it.  If  the 
health  and  comfort  of  the  population  are  bettered,  and  civic 
convenience  augmented,  no  aesthetic  considerations  or  historical 
associations  should  stand  in  their  way ;  for  thorough  ventilation, 
drainage,  pure  water,  and  cleanliness  should  be  had  at  whatever 
cost  to  the  picturesque  or  sentimental.  A  sanitary  argument 
enforces  itself,  because  physical  well-being  is  the  basis  of  pros- 
perity and  culture  in  a  State.  So  far,  therefore,  as  Paris  has 
gained  in  this  respect,  the  radical  policy  of  Napoleon  III.  in  up- 
rooting its  old  features  is  commendable.  But  the  new  aesthetic 
aspect  is  fairly  open  to  criticism  independent  of  its  twin-ques- 
tion. There  may  be  unnecessary  destruction,  absurd  restora- 
tion, insensibility  to  beauty  or  crude  taste.  Improvements  can 
be  made  to  harmonize  in  their  aesthetic  and  sanitary  relations, 
instead  of  clashing,  as  is  common.  Florence  gives  the  prece- 
dence to  the  beautiful  in  her  municipal  policy,  completing  the 
most  charming  boulevards  and  drives  in  Europe  in  her  environs, 
while  postponing  the  introduction  of  wholesome  water,  and 
widening  the  narrow  mediaeval  thoroughfares,  and  taking  meas- 
ures to  improve  the  foul  stone  dens,  in  which  the  larger  number 
of  her  inhabitants  do  not  live  out  nature's  allotted  number  of 
years.  Boston  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme,  regarding  first  the 
essentials  of  physical  welfare,  and  leaving  the  aesthetic  wants  of 
the  population  to  care  for  themselves.  Napoleon  III.  evidently 
kept  both  in  view,  aiming  to  make  his  capital  the  most  elegant 
as  well  as  the  most  convenient  of  the  world.  In  a  certain 
sense  his  scheme  is  a  success  both  ways.  New  Paris  is  a  well- 
scrubbed,  waxed,  polished,  gorgeous  town,  imposing  in  its  topo- 
graphical arrangement,  geometrically  accurate,  and  largely  con- 
ceived, pleasurably  adorned  after  a  scenic  method,  and  as  an 
entirety  admirably  calculated  to  make  the  same  agreeable  im- 


PARIS  OF  NAPOLEON  III. 


285 


pression  on  a  vast  scale  on  a  spectator  at  first  view  that  one  of 
its  tastefully  ordered  shop  windows  or  an  admirable  toilette  of 
a  Parisian  lady  does  in  a  small  way ;  either  being  for  the  mo- 
ment so  satisfactory  in  general  effect  as  to  indispose  the  senses 
to  a  critical  inspection  of  the  object  itself  in  detail.  So  far, 
therefore,  art  in  all  these  cases  has  a  gracious  mien.  But  as  it  is 
addressed  solely  to  the  external  senses,  it  soon  cloys.  The  hun- 
gry mind  gets  indignant  at  the  imposed  famine.  It  speedily  dis- 
covers there  is  no  cesthetic  conscience  or  culture  in  the  monoto- 
nous street  architecture  and  its  wearisome  parallel  and  horizon- 
tal lines,  stretching  mile  upon  mile  in  uniform  glitter,  overspread 
with  senseless,  meretricious  carvings  of  the  bastard  Renaissant 
order,  having  no  relation  either  to  the  age  or  the  background 
itself,  —  each  avenue,  house,  and  shop  the  counterpart  of  its  neigh- 
bor, so  that,  having  seen  a  segment  of  Paris,  one  has  seen  the 
whole ;  and  worse,  it  perceives  there  is  no  more  individuality  of 
character  in  the  new  buildings  than  in  baker's  bread,  which  is 
divided  into  categories  according  to  the  paste,  pattern,  and  its 
white-of-egg  varnish.  Just  so  may  the  edifices  be  classified 
from  the  number  of  gilt  balconies,  idiotic  carvings,  trumpery 
ornaments,  areas  of  plate  glass,  or  unsightly  ranges  of  arcades 
clumsily  drawn  out  into  interminable  lengths  like  the  peoples' 
loaves,  brilliant  as  gaud  for  the  eye,  but  vanity  of  vanities  as 
food  for  the  imagination.  Everything  seems  run  in  the  same 
mould  ;  a  one-mind  system  arbitrarily  overruling  individual  choice 
and  expression ;  each  object  and  person  reflecting,  as  the  shadow 
does  the  substance,  a  barren,  unsesthetic  will,  incapable  of  rising 
above  a  statistical  conception  of  life ;  holding  primarily  to  stra- 
tegic and  dynastic  aims,  and  secondly  to  diverting  the  national 
energies  entirely  to  mercenary  considerations  and  sensual  pleas- 
ures. We  have  unity  of  material  outlook,  but  no  intellectual 
variety  of  aspect.  Unlike  other  old  cities,  little  is  left  to  stir 
the  emotions  or  arrest  the  fancy.  Everything  is  spectacular ; 
a  change  of  fashions  in  the  shop  windows  being  the  chief  ex- 
citement to  the  passers.  Despotism  has  made  of  Paris  a  bril- 
liant bazaar,  cafe,  and  theatre ;  in  truth,  a  well-baited  trap  for 
money  and  morals.  Its  standard  of  humanity  is  low,  ambi- 
tions narrow,  knowledge  contracted  to  selfish  aims,  and  chase 
of  fleeting  pleasure  intense.  The  eye  is  fed  to  the  stint  of  the 
soul ;  and  it  is  not  all  wholesome  eyesight ;  for  too  much  is 
sheer  artifice,  which  weakens  the  faculty  of  perceiving  the  true, 
creating  instead  a  liking  for  whatever  is  scenic,  transitory,  and 


286 


DESPOTISM  IN  ART. 


unlike  nature,  or  a  passion  for  coarse  grotesque,  the  exaggerated 
sensual,  bizarre,  and  uncommon.  It  is  surface  gayety  on  a 
foundation  of  mental  despair  or  heaviness  of  heart,  arising 
from  perverted  or  restrained  aspirations ;  for  imperialism  is  the 
enemy  to  death  of  human  liberty  of  progress  in  its  own  way 
and  for  its  highest  interests.  Imperialism  necessarily  consumes 
itself;  for  its  principle  is  to  take  so  much  care  of  the  people, 
that  it  ends  either  in  emasculating  them  of  manly  vigor,  or 
makes  them  despise  and  hate  the  administering  head ;  both 
results  destructive  to  genuine  national  life.  The  only  wages  a 
despotism  like  this  can  bestow  are  sensualities  which  react  on 
the  giver,  and  deprive  him  of  all  hold  on  the  moral  sense  of  the 
nation.  Hence  they  corrupt  speedily  and  perish  disastrously. 
Papacy  is  no  less  a  despotism,  more  searching  and  complete, 
but  it  endures  because  it  feeds  the  imagination.  If  it  deprives 
its  subjects  of  human  rights  on  earth,  it  offers  a  consoling  future 
in  its  heaven,  and  threatens  more  cogently  by  means  of  its  ter- 
rific hell.  Some  may  view  these  remarks  as  foreign  to  my 
topic.  But  they  are  generated  by  the  spirit  which  pervades 
new  Paris — to  me  a  sad  one,  typified  in  its  general  aspect;  and 
this  aspect  is  due  to  the  one-man  system  of  governing.  In  any 
case  the  result  depends  on  the  probity,  intelligence,  and  sensibil- 
ity of  the  executive  mind,  be  it  centred  in  one  person  or  spread 
among  many.  History  conclusively  demonstrates  that  although 
the  former  method  sometimes  effects  notable,  radical  changes, 
its  end  is  never  salutary.  All  noble  and  fine  art,  aye,  all 
thorough  work  of  any  character,  from  the  Athens  of  Phidias 
down  to  our  time,  has  had  its  root  in  the  will  and  taste  of  the 
people  collectively.  Whenever  art  has  been  made  a  monopoly 
of  a  ruler  or  dependent  for  expression  in  his  caprices  and  inter- 
ests, it  has  either  decayed  altogether,  or  become  foolish  and  con- 
temptible. Nero,  Hadrian,  the  Medici,  the  Philips  of  Spain, 
Louis  XIV.  and  XV.  of  France,  and  finally  Napoleon  III,,  are 
familiar  names  in  this  connection,  just  as  the  commonwealths  of 
ancient  Greece,  Etruria,  the  republics  of  Florence,  Venice,  the 
free  cities  of  Germany,  and  the  civil  liberties  of  Holland  and 
England  are  associated  with  the  most  flourishing  periods  of  their 
art.  There  is  no  avoiding  the  conclusion  that  freedom  of  mind 
and  hand  in  the  multitude  is  required  for  a  genuine,  national 
art ;  and  that  any  state  dictation  or  even  excessive  patronage  is 
mischievous,  if  not  fatal,  to  its  being.  Even  if  an  arbitrary 
ruler  is  certain  to  act  wisely,  the  principle  is  none  the  less  wrong, 


THE  FRENCH  JESTHETIC  MIND.  287 


because  it  takes  away  from  those  whom  it  most  concerns  the 
practice  and  experience  necessary  to  complete  their  artistic  edu- 
cation, and  leaves  a  whole  people  dependent  on  the  knowledge 
and  virtue  of  one  fallible  mortal.  Those  of  my  countrymen, 
therefore,  who  admire  Paris,  especially  him  who  said  that  "  All 
good  Americans  go  to  Paris  when  they  die,"  had  better  pay 
more  regard  to  its  moral  constitution  before  deciding  that  it  is  a 
fit  heaven  for  the  people  of  the  New  World.^ 

The  ambition  of  Napoleon  III.  to  make  Paris  the  finest  city 
of  earth  is  far  better  than  that  of  Louis  XIV.,  whose  aim  was 
to  construct  for  himself  the  finest  palace.  Each  of  these  men 
has  impressed  himself  on  the  architecture  of  France  with  uniform 
egoism,  and  similar  unhappy  results  as  regards  the  public  taste. 
But  all  the  weakness  or  evil  of  a  national  art  inspired  by  a 
despotism  does  not  necessarily  originate  in  the  ruler.  Neither 
of  these  sovereigns  could  have  achieved  what  they  have,  of  good 
or  bad  art,  had  not  the  national  mind  been  more  or  less  in  sym- 
pathy with  their  views.  It  admires  organization,  precision,  sys- 
tem, symmetry,  proportion,  display,  splendor,  and  a  grand  style 
of  work.  Much  is  forgiven  the  magnificent,  munificent  despot, 
but  he  must  likewise  be  nice  in  small  things.  Frenchmen  shine 
in  making  even  the  common  article  attractive  to  the  eye,  or  ex- 
aggerating its  consequence  by  sounding  epithets  and  extravagant 
claims.  Vulgar  necessity  is  embowered  in  roses.  Their  aesthetic 
taste  is  not  profound,  imaginative,  or  notably  picturesque  in  ex- 
pression, but  specious,  scenic,  brilliant ;  chiefly  sensuous-pleasur- 
able in  aim,  not  according  to  the  old  Grecian  theory  of  joyous 
sensations,  but  superficial,  sentimental,  impatient.  They  dis- 
play a  sharp  insight  into  the  technics  of  art ;  an  incisive,  analyt- 
ical delight  in  its  execution  and  style  rather  than  a  happiness 
in  its  highest  intellectual  and  spiritual  qualities.  The  greatest 
pleasure  comes  from  the  spirituel  element ;  the  more  satisfying 

1  I  commend  to  his  notice  the  following  statistics  of  his  New  Jerusalem.  The 
proportion  of  illegitimate  children  born  in  Paris  is  now  one  half  the  whole  num- 
ber, or  one  in  two ;  only  Vienna  is  ahead,  its  ratio  being  five  hundred  and  nine 
out  of  every  one  thousand.  The  annual  births  are  about  fifty-five  thousand,  of 
which  nearly  thirty  thousand  die  the  first  year,  a  large  number  of  which  are 
effectually  put  out  of  the  way  by  the  system  of  '■'■Vallaitement  mercenaire^'''' 
which  called  forth  the  exclamation  of  one  of  the  mayors  of  the  communes  to 
which  the  babies  are  largely  sent,  "  Notre  cimetiere  est  pavede  cespetits  ParisiensJ'^ 
The  annual  suicides  of  imperial  Paris  vary  from  eight  hundred  to  nine  hun- 
dred, steadily  increasing,  while  democratic  New  York,  with  a  nearly  equal  pypu- 
lation,  counts  but  forty  to  fifty. 


288        GOVERNMENT,  JESTHETIC  IMMORALITY. 


if  sensual  or  malicious.  Art  flavored  with  sacrilegious  wit  or 
burlesques  has  a  very  fine  relish.  What  other  people  would  put 
the  sign,  "  La  Grace  de  Dieu,"  over  a  groggery,  as  may  be  seen 
in  Lagny,  or  dedicate  shops  where  female  gear  is  sold  "au 
Diable  ! "  That  art,  however,  which  most  gratifies  Gallic  vanity 
regardless  of  its  truth,  is  the  most  relished  of  all.  "  If  France 
be  satisfied,  the  rest  of  the  world  may  repose  in  peace,"  is  heard 
with  serene  satisfaction  from  the  mouth  of  their  sovereign,  as  an 
Olympian  fact  ;  but  no  other  king  could  utter  such  a  sentiment 
without  shocking  the  common  sense  of  his  subjects.  Nothing  so 
contents  the  masses  as  an  eflTective  or  elegant  appearance.  What- 
ever be  the  state  of  soundness  within,  the  outside  must  be  taking. 
Government  fosters  popular  illusions  as  a  source  of  power  to 
itself.  It  has  more  reliance  on  a  gilt  lie  than  a  naked  fact. 
This  principle  poisons  society,  and  reacts  on  the  government, 
which  must  continue  either  to  amuse  and  feed  the  public  at  a 
vast  expense,  or  divert  its  bitterness  of  disappointment  on  its 
neighbors,  as  the  cheapest  artifice  to  save  its  neck  from  the 
rope  of  its  own  twisting.  The  present  art  of  governing  France 
is  simply  one  form  of  aesthetic  immorality. 

By  the  few  initiated,  the  history  and  science  of  art  in  general 
is  well  understood  ;  its  philosophy,  too,  in  a  speculative,  epigram- 
matic manner,  though  with  but  little  aesthetic  feeling  of  a 
serious  character,  or  conscientious  regard  for  the  independent 
principle  of  art  itself,  which  is  forced  to  fit  sectarian  sentiment 
by  writers  of  the  Rio  order,  or  to  afford  scope  for  brilliant 
theorizing,'  or  beautiful  materialistic  compositions  by  unbelieving 
authors,  who  take  it  up  more  as  affording  opportunity  to  display 
their  own  artistic  cleverness  in  words  than  to  investigate  its 
character  after  the  example  of  the  more  critical  Germans.  It 
may  be  presumptuous  to  say  so ;  but  it  does  seem  to  me  that 
the  French  in  art,  as  in  other  departments  of  civilization,  ar- 
rogate a  superiority  not  warranted  by  facts.  If  they  possessed 
this  intellectual  superiority,  no  ruler  could  so  easily  master  and 
bridle  them  as  Louis  Napoleon  has  done ;  one,  too,  who,  except- 
ing some  practical  sagacity  in  commercial  matters,  has  evinced 
no  political  wisdom,  but  rather  a  curious  faculty  of  obfuscating 
truth  and  juggling  with  events  which  he  was  powerless  to  con- 
trol, and  who  comes  off"  the  loser  in  encounters  with  clever,  bold 
statesmen  like  Cavour,  Seward,  or  Bismark.  His  acts  and  talk 
are  much  after  the  fashion  of  most  of  French  art ;  concocted  to 
appear  better  than  they  really  are,  or  to  cover  up  something  that 


NAPOLEON  III. 


289 


it  is  not  politic  to  disclose.  Their  sound  and  promise  are  alike 
specious.  A  Parisian  butcher  gives  his  legs  of  mutton  an  aes- 
thetic look  by  dressing  them  in  chemises  of  white  paper,  per- 
forated to  resemble  lace.  With  this  toilet,  aided  by  fragrant 
flowers,  he  so  pleasurably  conceals  the  scent  and  garb  of  the 
shambles  that  the  most  timid  lamb  might  enjoy  the  spectacle. 
Shop-girls  make  pretty ^nd  cheap  objects  appear  twice  as  charm- 
ing and  useful  as  they  really  are,  by  a  sleight-of-hand  arrange- 
ment, much  like  the  emperor's  talk  about  liberty,  which,  as 
regards  any  practical  purpose,  is  as  much  a  mockery  as  is  the 
beautifully  exhibited  trumpery  of  trade.  The  success  of  the 
emperor  and  the  deficiency  of  art  are  due  to  the  same  cause  ;  not 
to  lack  of  intellect  and  knowledge,  but  of  morality  in  the^ coun- 
try at  large.  Louis  Napoleon  won  his  precarious  position  by 
appealing  to  its  vanity,  fears,  and  selfishness ;  gratifying  each  in 
turn  by  a  show-art,  show-wars,  saving  society  from  the  phantom 
of  socialism,  and  developing  business  so  as  to  change  the  masses 
into  quite  as  eager  hunters  of  the  sovereign  dollar  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  themselves  were  said  to  be  by  his  uncle.  For  these 
benefits,  the  nation  overlooked  perjury  ;  the  heedless  slaughter 
of  men,  women,  and  children,  on  the  2d  of  December,  1851, 
by  drunken  troops ;  the  subsequent  shooting  by  mistake  of 
numbers  of  citizens  loyal  to  the  conspirators ;  the  exile  of  nearly 
all  eminent  men ;  an  enormous  increase  of  debt ;  the  extinc- 
tion of  political  liberty,  whether  of  press,  speech,  or  legislature  ; 
a  stock-jobbing  Mexican  expedition,  undertaken  to  secure  the 
supremacy  of  the  Latin  race  in  the  New  World,  which  resulted 
in  proving  their  inability  to  hold  their  own  in  the  Old  World ; 
in  short,  a  series  of  crimes  and  blunders  that  must  have  con- 
signed to  the  scaffold  an  adventurer  who  had  not  the  dexter- 
ity to  poise  himself  on  the  tip  of  a  bayonet.  A  like  career 
is  possible  only  where  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong  in 
morals,  beauty,  and  trade  is  low,  and  all  the  more  possible 
if  the  training  of  a  people  is  rather  for  external  appearance 
than  internal  soundness  ;  seeming  replacing  being ;  prizes  offered 
for  virtue,  and,  as  in  the  recent  case  of  Josephine  Gabriel  of 
Marseilles,  won  by  hypocrisy.  Josephine  was  crowned  as  the 
most  deserving  girl  of  the  city.  Soon  after,  she  married,  per- 
suaded her  husband  to  make  a  will  in  her  favor,  and  then, 
after  piously  making  an  offering  to  the  Virgin  to  secure  her 
aid,  poisoned  her  spouse  in  order  to  use  his  money  to  bribe  a 
man,  of  whom  she  had  become  enamored,  to  return  her  passion. 
19 


290 


NAPOLEON  III. 


One  criminal  does  not  taint  a  nation;  but  the  active  prin- 
ciple that  brought  Josephine  Gabriel  to  the  guillotine,  placed 
Louis  Bonaparte  on  the  throne,  after  he  had  been  rewarded 
for  supposed  virtue  by  the  supreme  gift  of  a  deluded  race.  In 
imitation  of  the  French  practice,  an  American  Croesus  and 
amateur  of  horses  has  offered  prize  medals  for  fine  gentle- 
men ;  but  this  fallacious  way  of  breeding  virtue  will  never 
take  root  where  shams  are  readily  exposed.  It  is  a  plausible 
theory  that  premiums  develop  goodness,  that  money  makes 
art,  fine  words  an  honest  public  servant,  or  accumulation  of 
riches  constitutes  greatness.  The  French  people  having  un- 
dertaken the  experiment  on  a  vast  scale,  let  us  wait  for  the 
consummation  before  deciding  to  follow  in  their  footsteps. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


ART  IN  AMERICA. 

F  this  chapter  were  to  be  limited  to  what  actually 
exists  in  America  of  indigenous  art,  it  condition 
,      PV^N  almost  as  brief  as  that  on  snakes 

v\j^  in  a  certain  History  of  Ireland.  But  the  topic  is 
too  serious  to  be  treated  only  on  the  negative  side.  Let  us  take 
a  stock-account  of  what  we  have,  in  view  of  what  we  need.  An 
embryo  painter  like  West  is  no  longer  obliged  to  rob  the  tail  of 
his  mother's  cat  to  make  a  brush,  nor  do  we  as  frequently  hear 
grandfathers,  like  Harding's,  say,  "  I  want  you  to  give  up  this 
course  of  living  [portrait-painting].  It  is  no  better  than  swin- 
dling to  charge  forty  dollars  for  one  of  these  effigies.  Settle 
down  on  a  farm,  and  become  a  respectable  man."  No  !  The 
anti-respectable  notion  of  art,  the  joint  offspring  of  the  utilitarian 
habits  of  a  country  new  to  civilization  and  the  religious  tenets  of 
Puritan  settlers,  has  given  place  in  the  common  mind  to  a  notion 
almost  as  one-sided  and  ignorant  in  the  opposite  direction.  It 
inclines  to  take  a  sentimental  view  of  the  functions  of  an  artist 
and  his  works,  as  of  an  exceptional  being  not  amenable  to  the 
usual  rules  of  criticism,  and,  covering  them  with  poetical  haze, 
allows  the  imagination  to  accept  the  promise  for  the  fulfilment. 
This,  too,  when,  as  regards  art-education,  we  are  only  a  step  in 
advance  of  those  rudimentary  savages  who  fail  to  discriminate 
in  a  painting  between  a  man,  horse,  house,  tree,  or  ship.  We 
can  do  this,  and  it  is  about  as  far  as  our  training  as  a  people  in 
this  direction  has  gone. 

There  was  an  intermediate  state  of  unintelligent  curiosity 
about  art  as  something  strange  or  wonderful,  like  a  newly  dis- 
covered plant  or  a  gorilla  from  Africa.  This  was  the  time 
when  people  curious  to  know  what  the  "  Chanting  Cherubs  "  of 
Greenough  or  the  "  Greek  Slave  "  of  Powers  could  be,  were 
scarcely  to  be  persuaded  to  visit  them  lest  their  modesty  be 
shocked  at  their  nudity,  or  were  led  to  go  because  they  were 
naked,  and  peep  at  them  between  their  fingers.    We  are  less 


292 


AVERAGE  AMERICAN  ARTIST. 


easily  shamed  now.    The  French  theatre  having  trained  Amer- 
ican maidens  to  look  upon  actual  immodesty  with  a  cool  gaze,  ; 
real  art  no  longer  runs  a  risk  of  being  unnoticed  for  "  holding  j 
up  a  mirror  to  nature." 

What  we  now  want  is  to  train  the  public  to  comprehend  the 

true  nature  and  functions  of  art.    In  a  brief,  imperfect  way  I  ! 
have  sought  to  present  some  correct  notions  of  them.  Before 
touching  American  art  itself,  there  is  need  of  clearing  up  some 
of  the  fog  that  either  magnifies  or  obscures  it. 

The  little  absolutely  r»oble  art  of  the  world  is  confined  to  a  ' 

few  names,  and  deserves  all  and  even  more  of  the  esteem  which  , 

Americans  give  to  the  fictitious  and  common.  Their  sentiment  ■ 
is  right,  but  wrongly  placed.    The  average  artist  of  Europe  is 

not  a  genius ;  seldom  a  poet  or  man  of  ideas.    The  average  I 

American  artist  is  of  a  lower  standard  of  professional  education,  j 

and  seldom  possessing  an  iesthetic  temperament.    There  is  no  j 

more  loss  to  mankind  in  the  periodical  decay  of  much  of  j 

the  work  that  passes  current  as  art  at  any  time,  than  in  the  j 

dying  out  of  bad  or  dubious  fashions,  with  the  chance  of  replace-  i 

ment  by  better.    In  literature  it  is  the  same.    Some  manu-  I 

scripts  leaving  a  gap  in  our  mental  history,  no  doubt,  were  lost  j 

in  the  burning  of  the  Alexandrine  library;  but  the  contents  of  ! 
the  great  mass  must  have  been  as  unimportant  and  ephemeral  as 
are  the  great  herd  of  books  nowadays.    Whatever  each  gener- 
ation can  produce  for  itself,  conditions  being  equal,  is   better  for 
its  own  life  than  what  is  left  out  of  the  uses  of  the  preceding ; 

for  otherwise  it  looks  backwards  overmuch  instead  of  forward.  ! 

Genius  being  exceptional  revelation,  its  advent  can  never  be  ' 
predicted.    Whatever  it  has  given  the  world  in  art  or  science 

should  be  jealously  preserved  as  a  permanent  legacy  to  all  man-  | 

kind.    But  there  is  no  special  reason  for  preserving  the  produc-  I 

tions  of  ordinary  talent  or  maimal  dexterity,  except  as  illustra-  | 

tions  of  history,  and  to  fill  up  collections  of  curiosities.    The  ; 

sooner  bad  or  immoral  art  perishes,  the  better.    The  common  j 

fulfils  its  purpose  in  pleasing  its  contemporaries.   As  with  books,  j 

one  class  of  art  gives  way  to  another,  in  which  the  same  thought  ' 

is  renewed  in  a  fresh  shape,  so  that,  though  the  dead  form  de-  i 

cays,  the  spirit  lives  and  passes  on,  let  us  hope,  into  a  superior.  ' 

That  which  I  desire  now  to  emphasize  is,  that  the  average  art  j 

of  America  is  of  no  more  worth  that  the  averasre  literature  of  ! 

its  journals.    Both  are  cheap  and  rapid  productions  to  meet  the  ' 
immediate  wants  of  a  people,  whose  standard  of  culture  is 
steadily  advancing. 


AVERAGE  PATRON. 


293 


Moveover,  the  average  artist  is  as  easily  produced  as  the 
average  writer,  the  one  occupation  requiring  no  more  talent  or 
study  than  the  other.  Indeed,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find  suc- 
cessful artists,  as  regards  making  money,  who  have  begun  life 
as  traders,  mechanics,  or  writers.  There  is  so  little  real  artistic 
fibre  as  yet,  that  most  of  those  engaged  in  the  one  career  would 
have  met  with  equal  success  in  the  other  had  circumstances 
drawn  them  to  it.  Of  art,  as  genius,  we  have  none  ;  as  the  ex- 
pression of  an  aesthetic  constitution  and  ambition,  very  little ;  of 
conscientious  study  and  profound  knowledge,  even  less  ;  but  as 
the  fruit  of  the  demand-and-supply  principle  of  business,  much. 
Commissions  are  called  "  orders,"  as  in  trade,  and  art  is  mainly 
ordered  as  one  orders  a  style  of  calico  of  a  cotton  factory.  The 
ingenious  means  which  are  taken  by  some  prominent  painters  and' 
sculptors  to  advertise  themselves  and  their  productions,  are  far 
more  in  unison  with  commercial  than  artistic  habits,  tend  to 
substitute  fictitious  notoriety  for  true  fame,  and  to  make  imme- 
diate success  depend  more  on  the  tact  of  the  artist  in  keeping 
his  name  prominently  before  the  public  than  on  skill  and  devo- 
tion to  art  itself.  An  increasing  number  of  persons  engage  in 
art  for  no  sincere  purpose  except  to  speedily  become  rich  ;  their 
credit,  like  that  of  merchants,  being  based  on  the  amount  of 
business  they  do. 

In  England  the  system  is  not  much  better,  but  the  Average 
aristocratic  and  cultivated  element  of  society  raises  its  average 
standard  somewhat,  while  America,  as  yet,  has  only  a  p"-^^"^- 
raw  sentiment  or  crude  taste  to  guide  her  art ;  the  average  artist 
himself  being  as  uninformed  and  uncultured,  except  as  regards 
his  technical  processes,  as  the  average  patron.  This  state  of 
things  can  be  remedied  by  a  systematic  training,  and  the  forma- 
tion of  museums  and  galleries  devoted  to  the  philosophy  of  art  as 
exhibited  in  its  best  attainable  specimens  of  all  epochs,  arranged 
so  as  to  best  show  their  aesthetic  qualities  and  historical  distinc- 
tions. Climate  and  race  with  us  are  as  favorable  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  aesthetic  instinct  and  of  taste,  as  with  any  other 
people.  Indeed,  the  fusion  of  bloods  in  our  civilization,  joined  to 
the  absolute  freedom  of  the  popular  will  to  follow  out  its  own 
convictions,  is  preparing  a  more  favorable  ground  in  America 
than  exists  elsewhere. 

During  the  first  century  of  English  life  in  America,  or  until 
the  birth  of  West,  there  was  no  sign  of  enterprise  in  this 
direction.    Pictures,  if  any,  were  heir-looms  or  gifts  from  the 


294 


OUR  EARLY  SCHOOL. 


old  country.    There  was  a  slight  movement  in  the  second  cen-  ; 
tury  of  colonization,  but  even  then  an  artist  of  any  ability  was 
obliged  to  emigrate  to  Europe  to  live,  as  well  as  to  educate  him- 
self.   West,  Copley,  Vanderlyn,  and  Leslie  would  have  starved  ; 
at  home ;  abroad  they  secured  either  wealth  or  distinction.  j 
Having  given  their  characteristics  in  the  "  Art  Idea,"  it  is  un-  \ 
necessary  to  say  more  of  them  now,  or  of  that  well-trained  class  ; 
of  portrait  and  historical  painters,  like  Stuart,  Peale,  Trumbull, 
and  Sully,  who  illustrated  the  annals  of  the  Revolution.  AU- 
ston  had  more   ambition,  feeling,  and  knowledge  of  true  art 
than  manual  ability;  and  both  he.  Cole,  and  Horatio  Greenough, 
who  were  like  him  in  these  respects,  can  be  cited,  not  as  mas- 
The            ters,  but  as  proofs  of  innate  capacity  in  the  native 
Idealists.       American  for  high  art,  and  as  having  inaugurated  j 
their  school  with  lofty  intellectual  motives.    Being  in  advance  of  ! 
their  time,  it  is  no  cause  of  surprise  that  they  and  all  since  who 
prefer  idealism  to  realism,  like  William  Page,  Inness,  William  ; 
Hunt,  La  Farge,  Furness,  and  Babcock,  should  receive  a  scant  ; 
recognition  in  comparison  with  those  who  appeal  only  to  the  out-  ! 
ward  eye.  Somewhat  of  their  comparative  failure  is  owing  to  their  . 
manual  shortcomings  and  insufficiency  of  continuing  well-directed  ] 
effort  .;  there  being  no  supreme  standard  of  excellence  at  home  j 
to  animate  them  always  to  their  best,  or  of  critical  knowledge  to  | 
appreciate  their  higher  qualities.    They  have  produced  charac-  ] 
teristic  though  not  great  work,  and  are  an  important  element,  j 
not  so  much  from  what  has  been  done  as  for  being  a  living  pro-  i 
test  against  the  obtrusive  realism  and  superficiality  of  thought 
of  more  popular  painters,  and  for  keeping  the  imagination  and 
refinement  of  manner  from  dying  out  altogether.    They  also,  j 
more  than  others,  show  that  a  fine  sense  and  sentiment  of  color  j 
are  facts  of  the  American  temperament.    While  artists  of  their  \ 
aim  , and  inspiration  exist  in  any  school,  it  holds  germs  of  excel-  , 
lence.  ' 

There  is  another  class  that  disputes  with  them  the  palm  of  j 

art  on  the  score' of  absolute  fidelity  of  design,  with  painstaking  j 

sincerity,  rendering  the  little  and  great  with  equal  love  and  pa-  ] 

tience,  irrespective  of  ideas  and  imagination  ;  seeking  chiefly  to  j 

give  the  precise  forms  and  relations  of  things  in  their  external  j 

look,  without  other  imprint  of  choice  or  sentiment  in  composi-  j 
tion  than  nature  herself  at  the  moment  discloses.    This  phase 

is  admirably  represented  in  what  it  undertakes  by  Charles  I 

Moore  and  Farrar.    They  are  exact  literalists,  having  a  con-  J 


FALLACY  IN  SCULPTURE. 


295 


scientioiis  regard  for  their  specific  motive,  and  doing  their  work 
with  a  thoroughness  of  touch  and  study  which  affords  an  ex- 
ample to  others.  Their  art  thus  far  relies  too  much  on  its  local 
truth  of  design  and  hue,  and  topographical  exactitude  of  rep- 
resentation, and  too  little  on  the  sentiment  of  nature  or  on  the 
language  of  color,  the  strong  point  of  the  idealists.  It  is  based 
on  a  misconception  of  high  art,  which  has  a  deeper  purpose  in 
view  than  mere  truthful  representation  of  external  nature,  though 
it  demands  that.  If  its  highest  purpose  was  only  to  exhibit 
form,  distance,  proportion,  local  color,  and  the  physical  relations 
of  things  in  detail  and  mass,  then  any  instrument  which  could 
measure  sufficiently,  and  take  in  enough  points,  could  do  the 
artistic  work,  or  the  most  of  it.  But  that  which  gives  the 
mental  or  spiritual  characterization,  whether  of  man  or  nature, 
evades  any  grasp  of  this  sort.  The  artist  must  find  that  within, 
not  without  himself.  Can  we  compose  beauty  by  mathematical 
receipt,  or  depict  a  sigh  or  smile  as  they  occur  by  any  number  of 
measurements  of  the  length,  depth,  and  breadth  of  the  ever  mov- 
ing human  features  ?  Yet  there  are  artists  who  claim  that  this 
is  the  true  and  final  rule  of  art ;  a  delusion  which  even  their 
own  inept  productions  do  not  dispel.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  con- 
scientious painters  just  mentioned,  who  begin  in  the  right  way, 
but  do  not  go  deep  enough  into  the  truths  of  nature,  but  of  that 
delusion,  chiefly  confined  to  sculpture,  which  comes  of  the  pro- 
clivity of  the  American  mind  to  mechanics.  In  thus  speaking 
of  the  mechanical  and  commercial  spirit  of  American  artists,  it 
is  not  that  I  do  not  highly  value  trade  and  mechanics,  but  be- 
cause their  virtues,  if  applied  dominantly  to  art,  become  its 
vices.  Mankind  can  live  without  art,  but  not  without  them. 
Our  history,  particularly  the  Rebellion,  shows  how  much  we  can 
sacrifice  for  political  and  moral  ideas,  and  that  a  nation  may  be 
great  and  good  without  being  aesthetic,  though  art  alone  can  tan- 
gibly keep  alive  to  distant  generations  the  nobility  of  thought  and 
deed  of  those  preceding.  Therefore  it  is  the  more  essential  to 
the  sound  development  of  civilization  that  each  thing  be  kept  in  its 
right  place.  The  spirit  that  sustains  trade,  debases  art ;  that 
which  is  constructive  excellence  in  mechanical  labor  proper,  is 
enfeebling  in  aesthetics.  Machine-work  is  the  one  great  idealism 
of  our  prosaic,  civilization.  Even  Story,  whose  artistic  cultiva- 
tion ought  to  preserve  him  from  such  an  error,  advocates,  in  his 
treatise  on  proportions  in  sculpture,  the  adoption  of  a  formula 
by  which  he  claims  that  he  can  repeat  the  feat  of  Telekles  and 


296 


CHEAP  ART,  POOR  ART. 


Theodorus,  artists  who  wrought  so  perfectly  by  rule,  that  the 
half  of  a  Pythian  Apollo  was  made  by  one  at  Samos,  and  the 
other  half  at  Ephesus  by  his  companion,  the  halves  fitting,  when 
brought  together,  as  precisely  as  if  the  statue  had  been  the  work 
of  one  hand.  If  this  mechanical  success  of  parts  were  the  true 
aim  of  art,  we  should  establish  separate  manufactories  of  statues 
in  pieces,  as  of  watches,  to  be  put  together  as  needed,  with  extra 
members  warranted  to  fit  in  case  of  loss  of  any  of  the  first 
set. 

Painting,  fortunately,  cannot  be  reduced,  like  sculpture,  to 
such  a  mechanical  system.  It  may  be  wanting  in  mind,  super- 
ficial in  treatment,  and  empty  of  feeling,  yet  the  painter  must 
in  some  degree  represent  himself  in  his  work  ;  whereas,  by  the 
above  principle,  machines  could  be  constructed  to  turn  out  sculp- 
ture, as  they  do  any  other  kind  of  strictly  conventional  orna- 
mentation. In  fact,  we  have  a  system  of  machine-statuary  by 
patent.  Of  course,  no  intelligent  artist  advocates  this.  Story 
evidently  means  that  he  would  make  a  model  so  perfect  by  his 
rule  of  proportions  as  to  present  to  the  workmen  a  guide  so 
anatomically  faultless  that  it  would  be  a  matter  of  indifference 
if  the  whole  were  put  into  marble  in  one  block,  or  distributed 
in  limbs  to  different  studios.  Whether  each  laborer  saw  the 
entire  model  or  not,  his  portion  would  be  certain  to  be  accu- 
rately done  in  relation  to  the  mass. 

This  fallacy  obtains  extensively  with  our  sculptors,  and  de- 
ludes them  into  mistaking  means  for  ends.  Indeed,  several  advo- 
cate the  theory  of  measurements  as  the  only  necessary  guide  in 
sculpture.  Agreeing  too  well  with  the  national  bent  of  mind, 
it  is  widely  accepted  without  examination  into  its  merits.  For 
it  is  also  particularly  acceptable  in  its  promise  of  saving  mental 
and  manual  labor,  in  view  of  finally  cheapening  the  article. 
Here  again  comes  in  a  notion  all  right  as  respects  mechanics, 
and  all  wrong  as  regards  art.  Cheap  art  is  always  poor  art, 
or  no  art.  It  is  like  a  vessel  carrying  contraband  under  favor  of 
a  false  flag.  An  opinion  exists  that  genius  works  with  a  rapid 
hand ;  consequently  quick  work  is  a  sign  of  genius,  no  matter 
how  it  is  produced.  An  artist,  therefore,  is  tempted  to  employ 
any  means  of  economizing  labor  and  expense  to  enable  him  to 
respond  to  the  popular  notion,  irrespective  of  the  quality  of  his 
art ;  also  to  encourage  a  delusion  which  disguises  his  manual  de- 
ficiencies and  disinclination  to  severe  study.  Genius  may  con- 
ceive with  the  rapidity  of  light,  but  elaboration  is  the  result  of 


NEW  AMERICAN  SCHOOL. 


297 


long  and  diligent  practice.  Thought  and  manual  labor  differ 
widely  in  their  economy  of  time.  An  idea  which  is  to  change 
the  aspect  of  the  world,  may  be  born  in  one  second  ;  but  the 
means  by  which  the  revolution  is  effected,  may  be  centuries  in 
maturing.  Just  so  is  it  with  fine  art.  A  sketch  suggestive  of 
a  master's  hand  can  be  thrown  off  in  an  hour,  but  its  complete 
execution  is  most  often  the  patient  labor  of  months  or  years. 
Work  that  falls  short  of  this,  is  almost  always  intended  for  spe- 
cific effect  in  certain  positions  for  definite  purposes,  and  is  with- 
out disguise  more  or  less  slight  in  execution,  or  it  is  absolute 
scenic  artifice,  actually  intended  to  present  as  imposing  a  look 
with  as  little  expenditure  of  means  as  possible,  in  order  to  cheat 
the  public. 

Both  sculpture  and  painting  indulge  in  this  latter  practice, 
aided  and  abetted  by  the  illogical  and  ignorant  ideas  of  the  pub- 
lic at  large,  principally  grounded  in  the  confounding  of  mechan- 
ical with  artistic  qualities,  though  with  good  ends  in  view.  A 
little  reflection  will  show  that  sculpture  reduced  to  a  mechanical 
system  can  make  no  advance,  and  that  the  first  work  of  a  sculp- 
tor done  by  it,  is  as  likely  to  be  as  good  as  his  last,  while  it  ig- 
nores that  vital  characterization  which  is  the  play  of  mind,  and 
which  mind  alone  transmits  to  the  clay  through  the  fingers,  and 
not  by  the  points  of  any  instrument. 

Infinite  pointings  cannot  place  the  modelling  of  the  modern 
sculptor  on  a  par  with  that  of  Phidias  or  Michael  Angelo,  nor 
will  any  theory  of  the  "  canons  of  measurement "  reveal  the 
secret  principles  by  which  they  put  unconscious  life  into  stone. 
These  come  and  go  with  the  master's  life-blood.  Neither  can 
any  painter  of  to-day,  by  charlatanism  of  brush  or  time-saving 
instruments,  rival  the  old  men  who  put  first  their  minds  and 
then  their  fingers  with  unsparing  energy  and  fidelity  into  their 
work. 

America  at  last  has  a  class  of  painters  of  realistic  ten-  The  new 
dency,  eclectic  and  scientific  in  practice,  as  sincere  and  school  of 
chaste  in  motive  as  the  English  school,  though  not  its  p"'^^*^^^- 
equal  yet  in  execution,  nor  on  the  level  of  the  best  style  of  the 
French,  to  which  it  seemingly  aspires.    This  class  is  respect- 
ably represented  by  Eastman  Johnson,  Elihu  Vedder,  Winslow 
Homer,  and  others  of  their  stamp.    These  already  contest  with 
the  landscapists  the  popular  favor.    If  they  have  not  as  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  notably  raising  the  standard  of  idea  in  art,  consider- 
able has  been  accomplished  in  elevating  its  execution.  But 


298             LEUTZE,  BIERDSTADT,  CHURCH.  ; 

i 

their  principal  service  is  the  reproof  they  offer  to  the  slop-work  '■ 

of  the  melodramadsts,  of  whom  Leutze  was  chief.    Of  all  his  ■ 

frantic  compositions,  the  fresco  of  "  Westward  Ho  !  "  in  the'  glass  i 

method,  painted  in  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  is  the  maddest.  ^ 
A  more  vicious  example  in  composition  and  coloring,  with  some 

cleverness  of  details,  could  not  be  presented  to  young  painters,  j 

Confusion  reigns  paramount,  as  if  an  earthquake  had  made  ' 

chaos  of  his  reckless  design,  hot,  glaring  coloring,  and  but  ill  ; 
comprehended  theme. 

We  owe,  also,  to  the  new  men  an  infusion  of  fresh  life  into  > 
the  old  academic  routine  of  conventional  dulness  and  weakness 

which  was  fast  putting  all  America,  before  they  came  upon  the  ' 

scene,  as  regards  idealistic  painting,  much  into  the  condition  of  j 

the  good  people  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  reducing  our  aesthetic  con-  ; 
dition  to  a  level  of  the  understanding  required  to  appreciate  the 

Peter  Parley  style  of  literature.  Thanks  to  them,  a  picture  now  i 
must  be  something  besides  so  many  square  feet  of  meaningless 

coloring  and  infant-school  drawing.  i 

In  genre,  which  is  coming  into  fashion,  nothing  more  note-  | 

worthy  has  been  done  than  to  attempt  it  sincerely,  with  an  oc-  i 

casional  tendency  to  humor.    The  Great  Exposition  of  1867  at  ! 

Paris,  taught  us  a  salutary  lesson  by  placing  the  average  Amer-  ■ 
ican  sculpture  and  painting  in  direct  comparison  with  the  Euro- 
pean, thereby  proving  our  actual  mediocrity.  Whistler's  freaks  of 
coloring  were  original,  and  his  Tiepolo-like  touch  effective  ;  but 
his  pictures  were  rather  suggestions  of  power  than  complete  art. 

Some  of  Hunt's  portraits  displayed  a  refinement  of  characteriza-  j 

tion  and  delicacy  of  handling  not  seen  in  the  more  labored,  con-  j 

ventional  European  portraiture.    We  most  failed  in  our  lauded  j 

landscapists.    Bierdstadt's  "  Rocky  Mountains,"  superior  to  sub-  i 

sequent  work,  looked  cold  and  untruthful.  Its  interest  was  \ 
confined  to  a  tableau-like  inventory  of  an  extensive  view,  while 

its  effect  on  the  mind  was  similar  to  sounding  phrases  of  little  i 

meaning.    His  more  recent  work  is  no  less  illusive  and  spectac-  I 

ular,  thinner  in  color,  and  may  be  compared  to  mere  rhetorical  ' 
oratory.    Church's  "  Niagara,"  with  no  more  sentiment,  a  cold, 

hard  atmosphere,  and  metallic  flow  of  water,  gave  greater  local  ' 

truth,  and  was  a  literal  transcript  of  the  scene.    Bradford,  like-  i 

wise,  is  clever  in  topographical  narration  in  a  pictorial  form ;  | 

sometimes  rendering  the  action  and  forms  of  waves  with  con-  i 

siderable  accuracy.    But  none  of  this  class  of  landscapists  com-  , 

prehend  the  language  of  color,  or  show  a  nice  executive  sense  i 


RAPHAEL'S  LANDSCAPE. 


299 


of  its  use  and  capacity,  as  does  Inness  in  one  way  and  Vedder 
in  another,  quickening  it  with  imagination  original  in  tone  and 
feeling.  Bierdstadt  gives  scenic  combinations  of  certain  outside 
facts  of  nature,  generally  on  a  large  scale,  disenfranchised  of  sen- 
timent and  imagination.  The  enterprise  of  the  sensational  land- 
scapists,  in  seeking  out  Nature's  marvels  amid  the  icebergs  of 
Labrador,  the  recesses  of  the  Andes,  or  the  deserts  of  Arabia, 
is  laudable  ;  but  the  return  to  the  spectator  who  thinks,  or  has 
the  spiritual  faculty,  is  not  worth  the  cost.  Yet  they  do  address 
significantly  the  majority  of  Americans,  who  associate  them  with 
the  vulgar  idea  of  "  big  things,"  as  business.  In  reality,  they 
are  bold  and  effective  speculations  in  art  on  principles  of  trade  ; 
emotionless  and  soulless  ;  possessing  not  even  the  pseudo-roman- 
tic spirit  of  the  Poussin  method  of  treating  the  landscape  ;  still 
less  those  delicious  technical  qualities  and  that  subtle  poetical  feel- 
ing which  renders  Corot's  style  so  attractive  to  persons  of  a  sensi- 
tive, refined  temperament.  Nature's  best  is  left  out.  Instead,  we 
get  a  misuse  of  artistic  power  and  industry,  which,  if  more  sin- 
cerely and  interpenetratingly  directed,  might  produce  something 
one  would  care  to  remember. 

In  his  youth  Raphael  painted  a  picture  of  surpassing  The  ''Apollo 
excellence  even  for  him,  "  Apollo  listening  to  Mar-  "yas^^^of 
syas  "  playing  the  flute  in  rivalry  of  the  god.  This  ^^^phaei. 
picture  is  still  in  fine  condition,  and  belongs  to  Mr.  Morris  Moore 
of  Rome.  The  figures  of  the  god  and  satyr  are  thoroughly  clas- 
sical in  motive  and  style  of  execution,  possessing  that  statuesque 
grace  and  perfection  of  modelling  which  belongs  to  the  best 
Grecian  period.  Nothing  more  vital  in  form  and  characteriza- 
tion has  been  conceived  by  Christian  art.  It  is  impossible  to 
give  an  adequate  idea  of  the  majesty  of  Apollo  as  he  stands  in- 
tently listening  to  the  notes  of  the  rash  Marsyas,  so  absorbed  in 
his  music  as  to  be  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  his  divine 
listener.  No  one  who  has  not  seen  this  painting,  can  realize 
the  entire  merit  of  Raphael  as  a  painter,  how  thoroughly  he 
enters  into  the  spirit  of  the  antique,  and  his  capacity  of  putting 
its  poetical  myths  into  a  fresh  and  beautiful  shape.  His  concep- 
tions of  Christian  topics  seem  in  comparison  conventional  and 
constrained,  as  if  he  felt  himself  in  intellectual  bondage  to 
ideas  not  in  exact  harmony  with  his  own  consciousness  of  the 
beautiful,  except,  as  with  his  madonnas  and  children,  he  repre- 
sented the  emotions  common  to  all  humanity. 

But  it  is  of  his  landscape  I  would  now  speak,  as  the  most 


300 


EOTCHKISS. 


striking  and  precious  contrast  to  the  pretentious  illusions  or  pro- 
saic barrenness  of  the  popular  American  school.  Raphael  com- 
posed his  landscape  only  as  a  locality  for  his  figures,  to  which 
it  is  strictly  subordinated.  The  whole  picture  is  only  twelve 
inches  broad  by  fifteen  high.  Nevertheless  out  of  a  few  simple 
details  of  hill,  river,  distant  town,  and  appropriate  middle  and 
foreground,  he  has  got  more  distance,  breadth,  transparency  of 
shadow,  more  vivid  light  of  subtlest  gradation  of  tone,  and  a 
greater  suggestion  of  the  variety  of  nature  out  of  a  few  perfectly 
rendered  details,  set  in  an  exquisite  unity  of  warm  coloring, 
than  can  be  seen  in  any  of  the  mammoth  landscapes  which  have 
come  into  vogue  from  Claude's  time  to  our  own.  He  painted 
the  landscape  as  though  he  loved  it,  doing  thoroughly  what- 
ever he  chose  out  of  it  for  an  accessory  to  his  main  motive,  and 
casting  over  the  whole  the  spell  of  his  own  subtle  insight  and 
observation. 

We  have  one  young  man,  Hotchkiss  of  Rome,  who  appreciates 
the  qualities  of  the  mediaeval  landscapists,  and  unites  them,  in  his 
own  work,  to  the  greater  variety  and  more  distinctive  realism 
of  the  best  style  of  modern  landscape-painting,  as  the  old  men 
did,  solidly,  conscientiously,  and  truthfully. 
Mediocrity        If  the  Standard  of  American  painting  be  one  of 

of  American  ,  .  ,  'i      pi  i        o  ' 

sculpture.  mcdiocrity,  what  is  to  be  said  or  the  style  oi  its 
sculpture?  Everywhere,  except  in  Italy,  where  linger  some 
traditions  and  many  examples  of  better  days,  sculpture  falls  be- 
hind painting.  American  sculpture  is  more  ambitious  in  some 
respects  than  its  sister  art,  aspires  to  a  higher  range  of  motives, 
and  is  feeling  its  way  towards  what  may  be  called,  if  not 
original  treatment,  one  more  in  accord  with  modern  ideas  than 
that  of  European  sculpture  in  general.  There  is  springing  up 
a  large  and  munificent  demand  for  it  in  the  shape  of  public  mon- 
uments ;  it  is  coming  into  fashion  as  an  adjunct  to  architecture  ; 
and  there  is  a  bounteous  call  for  costly  busts,  portrait-statues, 
cheap  copies  of  classical  marbles  and  dear-at-any-price  originals 
of  Eves,  Judiths,  White  Slaves,  and  other  crude  fancies  of 
second-hand  sentiment,  or  bad  effigies  in  stone  of  imperfect 
nudity  in  the  flesh.  Unlike  the  Grecian,  the  American  ideal 
sculpture  has  no  perfected  standard  of  beauty,  but  vibrates  from 
one  inferior  model  to  another,  with  such  original  touches  as  the 
fancy  of  the  sculptor  supplies  for  its  betterment.  So  far  as  the 
stimulus  of  buying  is  concerned,  the  American  sculptor  is  the 
most  fortunate  of  modern  artists.    If  ample  patronage  can 


THE    BEAUTIFUL"  AND  "RIDICULOUS."  301 


create  a  national  school,  we  shall  have  one  soon.  But  the  de- 
mand having  preceded  knowledge  and  skill,  we  are  obtaining 
our  sculpture  to  the  detriment  of  our  taste.  It  forces  an  inept 
art  on  an  unprepared  public  as  its  standard  of  good  in  this  direc- 
tion. Some  benefit  may  come  of  its  effigies  by  familiarizing 
the  people  with  the  idea  of  art  in  general,  and  in  time  begetting 
a  desire  for  better  work.  But  for  the  moment  the  tendency,  as 
before  shown,  is  to  view  it  more  in  the  prosaic  light  of  the  busi- 
ness instincts  of  the  masses  than  in  a  strictly  aesthetic  sense. '  So 
strongly  ingrained  is  the  desire  of  the  beautiful  in  the  Italian  mind 
that  it  applies  the  word  for  it  to  remote  or  quite  opposite  associa- 
tions ;  for  instance,  "  La  casa  e  hella  e  fdtta^''  "  The  thing  is  heau- 
tifully  done  "  (whatever  it  may  be,  even  a  crime)  ;  "  Egli  e  bello 
morte,''  "  He  is  beautifully  dead  "  (meaning  quite  dead).  The 
vender  of  fruit  beneath  my  window  is  now  proclaiming  his  mer- 
chandise, not  literally  "  Ripe  oranges  for  sale,"  but  by  a  poetical 
appeal  to  the  senses  as  follows  :  "  C% '  odore,  che  gusto,  che  colore,^' 
"  What  odor,  what  flavor,  what  color !  "  in  musical  accents, 
leaving  the  hearer's  fancy  to  finish  his  sentence,  and  whet  the 
appetite.  Americans,  being  sensitive  to  the  absurd,  in  speaking 
of  solemn  emotions,  often  say,  "  I  felt  (or,  it  was)  ridiculous,"  or, 
as  they  use  their  still  more  favorite  verbal  idealization,  "  a  big 
thing,"  meaning  something  grand,  noble,  or  sublime.  Our 
idioms  will  tell  us  without  fail  when  we  have  risen  above  the 
"  big  "  or  "  ridiculous  "  apprehension  of  ideas  and  facts  to  the 
beautiful  perception  of  them.  But  our  speech  cannot  change 
until  the  feeling  that  seizes  on  the  big  or  absurd  as  a  synonyme 
of  excellence  and  supremacy  is  diverted  to  a  higher  intellectual 
phase.  To  attain  an  end  laudable  or  otherwise,  the  common 
rule  is  to  talk  "  big  "  and  work  fast,  without  a  moment's  concern 
if  it  all  ends  in  the  ridiculous.  A  young  woman  in  a  leisure 
moment  designs  or  compiles  a  grandiose  monument  to  the  mar- 
tyr Lincoln,  which  is  to  cost  several  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
one  which  would  have  occupied  a  Michael  Angelo  perhaps 
years  to  have  brought  to  a  satisfactory  condition  ;  and  instantly 
a  committee  adopt  it,  issuing  a  circular  to  the  nation,  in  which 
this  hasty  composition  is  called  "  the  greatest  achievement  of 
modern  art,"  the  completion  of  which  "  will  place  our  country 
in  art,  as  she  is  in  freedom,  in  arms,  in  commerce,  in  manufac- 
tures, in  science,  and  in  skill  in  all  that  makes  a  nation  great, 
in  the  front  ranks  of  the  nations  of  the  earth !  " 

Either  artist  and  committee,  meaning  noble,  achieve  foolish 


302 


OUR  MONUMENTS. 


things,  or  else,  happy  is  the  land  where  is  born  the  woman  who 
can  thus  elevate  the  entire  people  by  one  slight  effort  of  her 
will  and  skill !  This  unfortunate  conception  of  art  and  artist 
is  filling  our  land  with  gigantic  inanities  in  stone,  miscalled 
monuments,  but  which  are  mechanical  monstrosities.  There 
are  a  few  exceptions,  like  the  unfulfilled  design  of  Billings  for 
the  "  Pilgrims'  Monument "  at  Plymouth,  Mass.,  which  is  appro- 
priate and  imposing,  though  the  best  figures  are  evidently 
suggested  by  the  Sibyls  or  Prophets  of  Michael  Angelo.  But 
the  greater  number  of  our  monuments  have  no  unity  of  parts 
or  purpose  ;  are  crude  or  commonplace  in  conception ;  either 
made  up  hastily  for  the  market,  or  unadvisedly  stolen  or  altered 
from  preceding  work,  and  calculated  to  reflect  no  honor  on  the 
dead  or  living.  Soon  there  will  be  seen,  in  high  places  and  in 
low,  huge  effigies,  in  bronze  and  stone,  of  volunteers  on  guard, 
at  corners  of  columns,  obelisks,  and  shafts  of  every  conceivable 
degree  of  disproportion,  misapplication,  and  inappropriate  or- 
namentation, dedicated  to  the  heroes  of  our  late  contest.  Alas 
for  them,  or  rather  for  us !  For  they  are  gone  where  the  beau- 
tiful reigns  paramount.  We  must  remain  a  while  longer  where 
ugliness  will,  if  we  persist  in  paying  an  enormous  bounty  for  it. 
I  remember,  recently,  on  going  into  a  studio  where  one  of  these 
extraordinary  State  monuments  was  in  process  of  manufacturing, 
of  being  confronted  by  one  of  the  accessory  "  boys  in  blue " 
some  thirty  feet  tall,  and  bringing  away  with  me  only  a  confused 
sensation  of  "  big  "  buttons. 

A  clever  sculptor  will  do  good  work  in  spite  of  unfavorable 
costume.  Look  at  the  statue  of  St.  Alessio  in  the  garb  of  a 
pilgrim,  on  the  facade  of  Santa  Trinita,  Florence.  Here  is  life- 
like movement  and  character,  although  intended  merely  for  out- 
door decoration.  Cacini,  knowing  the  human  anatomy,  instead 
of  piling  trousers  on  boots,  coat  on  trousers,  shirt-collar  and  hat 
over  all,  and  calling  the  heap  of  old  clothes  a  statue,  leaving  the 
spectator  to  construct  the  bones  and  flesh  out  of  his  own  con- 
sciousness, makes  his  man  wear  his  clothes  naturally  and  easily. 
Having  something  human  to  fit  to,  of  themselves  they  suggest 
a  man,  and  not  a  scarecrow  of  a  cornfield,  as  do  the  limp  statues 
with  which  Boston  adorns  its  streets,  like  the  "  Horace  Mann," 
The  statues  formlcss  and  void,  holding  out  the  sleeve  that  does 
of  Boston.,    ^^j^y  f^j.  f^j.  charity;  "Webster,"  built 

up  after  an  intense  study  of  his  last  suit  of  clothing;  while  the 
granite  "  Hamilton  "  seems  intended  for  one  of  the  Athenian 


BOSTON  STATUES. 


303 


HermaB  in  a  Yankee  guise,  his  head  being  the  only  human  sug- 
gestion about  it.  The  graceful  "  Everett  "  is  bursting  off  his 
coat-buttons  in  a  frantic  attempt  to  box  the  sky,  or  to  hail  George 
Washington  to  stop  for  him.  Anything  in  the  shape  or  action  of 
a  spinal  column  to  these  statues,  not  to  mention  actual  limbs  with 
muscles  and  articulations,  is  considered  superfluous,  if  the  clothes 
be  correctly  creased  and  buttoned,  and  some  of  the  most  striking 
points  of  the  face  given,  on  which  is  lavished  what  talent  the 
sculptor  possesses.  Sculpture  of  the  "  Everett "  pattern  is  no 
better  than  rank  fustian,  altogether  unworthy  of  the  modeller  of 
the  effigy  of  Judge  Story  at  Mount  Auburn. 

How  are  we  to  secure  better  ?  There  are  two  means.  One, 
by  competition.  The  point  with  the  public  is  to  get  good  sculp- 
ture, at  prices  which  remunerate  the  artist  proportionately  to 
the  talent  or  genius  displayed.  Anything  over  is  almsgiving,  or 
else  a  premium  awarded  to  ignorance  and  charlatanism  ;  if  less 
than  the  work  merits,  the  public  forces  the  true  artist  into  com- 
peting with  the  false  in  misleading  the  people,  that  he  may  gain 
hi^  daily  bread.  Some  stand  out  manfully,  and  abide  their  day 
of  rightful  appreciation  ;  but  the  many  go  over  to  the  ranks  of 
the  empirics,  and,  as  things  go,  win  fortunes,  I  shall  enlarge  on 
this  aspect  of  the  question,  further  on.  Now  the  point  is  how  to 
compel  the  sculptor  to  do  his  best.  As  he  puts  his  profession  on 
a  level  of  trade,  the  patron  must  meet  him  on  the  same  ground. 
Give  the  work  to  him  who  will  do  it  best  at  a  given  price.  To 
this  it  may  be  objected,  Who  is  to  be  the  judge  ?  Adopt  the  sys- 
tem, and  the  competition  and  the  criticism  that  must  ensue,  will 
speedily  instruct  both  the  sculptor  and  his  patron.  The  imme- 
diate eflfect  doubtless  would  be  to  turn  a  large  part  of  the  com- 
missions now  given  by  hazard  or  friendship  to  Americans  into 
Italian  hands,  which,  for  one  third  the  money  at  present  so  reck- 
lessly wasted,  would  return  an  equal  amount  of  respectable 
mediocrity  in  marble  and  bronze,  beside  saving  the  nation  from 
being  made  absolutely  ridiculous  in  so  much  of  its  statuary.  If 
we  do  not  exact  the  fulfilment  of  the  bond,  who  is  to  blame  the 
artist  for  getting  as  much  money  for  as  little  art  as  possible  ? 

Let  us  examine  into  the  practical  working  of  the  present  sys- 
tem, for  it  is  an  important  question,  as  respects  both  the  money 
it  costs,  and  the  standard  of  art  it  creates.  A  distinguished  man 
passes  on  to  the  other  life.  His  form  and  character  are  to  be 
transmitted  to  the  future,  in  some  enduring  material.  The  pres- 
ent generation  demands  that  he  shall  look  life-like,  even  to  the 


304 


STYLE  OF  OUR  SCULPTURE. 


transitory  fashion  of  his  clothes.  An  artist  is  chosen  by  a  com- 
mittee of  subscribers  to  the  fund,  almost  invariably  on  personal 
considerations,  without  any  special  regard  to  his  fitness  for  the 
work,  of  which  few  among  them  have  trained  themselves  to 
judge,  and  without  his  being  called  upon  to  give  any  special 
proof  of  his  capacity  for  it,  or  any  one  else  being  invited  to  do 
so.  A  photograph  of  the  deceased,  together  with  his  latest  gar- 
ments, are  furnished  ;  and  the  contract  is  signed  with  little  if  any 
inquiry  into  the  actual  cost  or  value  of  the  equivalent  to  be  ren- 
dered. In  due  time  a  statue  is  made,  and  put  up  with  much 
ceremony  and  laudation  of  the  press.  At  this  state  all  the 
parties  are  content ;  for  the  artist  has  his  fame  and  money,  and 
the  public  have  got  one  more  statue  which  they  have  welcomed 
in  amiable  ftiith  at  its  being  what  they  bargained  for.  Soon, 
however,  a  reaction  begins.  I  tell  what  I  have  witnessed.  One 
spectator,  more  hardy  in  his  opinions  than  the  mass,  fails  to  dis- 
cover in  the  effigy  him  they  sought  to  honor.  The  doubt  spreads, 
criticism  is  awakened,  and  the  fact  is  proven.  If  it  were  a  ship, 
locomotive,  or  style  of  goods  not  up  to  the  contract,  it  would  be 
returned  to  the  maker.  But  a  statue,  although  done  on  business 
rules,  claims  an  exemption  in  its  own  favor.  Though  it  be  so 
ridiculous  in  pose  that  every  street-boy  flings  his  joke  at  it  as  he 
runs  by,  it  must  be  put  up,  and  tenderly  cared  for,  at  much  ad- 
ditional cost,  forever.  An  ordinary  nuisance  may  be  abated 
by  a  grand  jury,  but  for  such  an  one  there  is  no  remedy  except 
in  some  great  catastrophe  of  nature  or  outbreak  of  human 
wrath. 

How  to  get  If  we  employed,  irrespective  of  nationality  and 
ture.  personal  engineering  of  claims,  whoever  could  most 

faithfully  and  thoroughly  execute  the  desired  object,  there  would 
be  no  increase  of  these  spineless  figures  whose  clothes  are  either 
torn  asunder  from  overstuffin<^,  like  an  overloaded  sack  of  grain, 
or  else  seem  as  if  dropping  from  want  of  a  supporting  anatomy ; 
no  more  stone-dolls  to  amuse  the  wits  of  society,  perplex  the 
honest  student  of  art,  exasperate  the  descendants  of  the  dishon- 
ored  dead,  or  vex  the  living.  Instead,  if  we  had  nothing  greatly 
to  admire,  there  would  be  nothing  greatly  to  condemn.  Suppose 
our  average  portrait-statues  were  no  better  than  those  of  the  emi- 
nent Florentines  that  adorn  the  cortile  of  the  Uffizi ;  they  would 
be  respectably  done,  serve  their  purpose  very  well,  and  cost  not 
one  third  of  what  is  now  given  for  abortions.  Indeed,  even  less, 
for  these  were  notoriously  cheap.    Some  were  made  for  less  than 


COST  OF  SCULPTURE. 


305 


six  thousand  francs,  or  twelve  hundred  dollars,  the  artist  finding 
his  own  marble. 

As  my  aim  in  this  chapter  is  to  be  as  practical  as  prices  of 
possible,  I  will  add  a  few  words  here  regarding  prices. 

It  is  due  to  the  givers  that  they  should  have  some  criterion  of 
the  actual  cost  of  what  they  buy  in  this  shape,  especially  as  the 
disposition  now  is  to  give  lavishly  without  inquiry.  I  do  not 
refer  to  works  of  genius.  In  no  age  have  they  ever  been  paid 
for  as  merchandise,  nor  should  they  ever  be,  if  we  would  preserve 
genius  untouched  of  worldliness.  I  refer  to  the  excessive  prices 
given  for  mediocre  or  worthless  work,  which  ought  to  be  regu- 
lated on  the  same  principles  of  cost  of  production,  and  the  actual 
value  of  the  article,  that  obtain  in  every  other  business  matter. 
Talent  in  art  deserves  to  be  as  well  remunerated  as  in  science 
and  trade :  but  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  command  excep- 
tional prices  in  America,  in  the  form  of  painting  or  sculpture, 
while  in  France  or  Italy  the  compensation  given  is  based  on  the 
ordinary  laws  of  demand  and  supply.  A  Michael  Angelo  builds 
St.  Peter's  without  price,  toils  eighty  years  in  ascetic  privation,, 
leaves  a  modest  sum  to  his  relatives  and  a  sublime  legacy  to 
the  world.  A  Bernini  lives  in  luxury,  and  dies  a  millionnaire. 
Raphael  receives  thirty  crowns  for  his  "  Ezekiel,"  Frith  £8,000 
for  a  "  Derby  Day,"  and  Bierdstadt  $25,000  for  a  picture  of  the 
"  Rocky  Mountains."  In  this  way  the  common  mind  discrimi- 
nates between  genius  and  talent.  It  seems  hard  on  genius  ;  but  I 
doubt  if  it  would  be  kept  altogether  faithful  to  its  best  instincts, 
were  it  much  petted  and  lavishly  paid. 

Consummate  talent  should  not  be  grudged  its  gains,  however 
large,  because  they  are  the  legitimate  fruit  of  labor,  and  the 
world  largely  benefits  by  it.  But  why  pay  as  much  or  more 
for  the  inept  or  commonplace  as  would  content  the  greatest 
skill?  The  "Webster"  of  Powers  is  by  universal  criticism  con- 
sidered to  be  as  indifferent  a  representation  of  that  statesman  as 
could  be  fashioned,  and  without  any  redeeming  aesthetic  features. 
For  the  original  statue  lost  at  sea,  the  public  paid  $12,000  ;  and 
for  the  present  duplicate  $7,000  ;  in  all,  $19,000.  It  cost  to 
cast  these  statues  in  Florence,  bronze  included,  within  a  fraction 
of  $3,300,  which  leaves  almost  $16,000  as  the  sum  paid  for  the 
fabrication  of  the  "  clay  model,"  the  equal  of  which  any  clever 
artist  could  put  up  in  a  short  time.^    In  these  days,  when  monu- 

1  The  cost  of  making  an  ideal  bust  in  Florence,  including  the  marble,  like  the 
20 


306  EFFECT  OF  COMPETITIVE  ART. 


ments  to  cost  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  are  put  without 
reflection  into  hands  to  be  executed  that  have  never  given  proof 
of  their  capacity  to  excel  in  art,  it  is  expedient  to  pause  awhile 
over  the  pecuniary  responsibility  at  stake.  I  am  not  speaking 
of  works  that  display  actual  beauty,  or  energetic  invention,  or 
any  really  strong,  characteristic  trait.  An  American  who  could 
model  a  "  Demosthenes"  or  "  Aristides,"  would  be  cheaply  paid 
at  fifty  thousand  dollars,  while  one  who  did  no  better  than  the 
newly  found  gilt  "  Hercules  "  at  Rome,  would  be  dearly  paid  at 
five  thousand  for  a  similar  monster.  An  author  may  employ 
ten  times  as  much  toil  and  brains  on  a  book  as  it  took  to  model 
the  "  Webster  "  or  "  Everett,"  and  he  would  be  esteemed  fortu 
nate  were  he  to  receive  one  tenth  of  their  cost  for  his  copyright. 

When  we  can  secure  a  sculptor  who  can  model  like  Donatello 
or  Lucca  della  Robbia,  or  paint  our  walls  like  Piero  della  Fran- 
cesca  or  D.  Ghirlandajo,  not  to  mention  greater  names,  all 
the  money  we  lavish  on  them  will  be  a  blessing  to  the  world, 
and  only  a  limited  compensation  to  the  artist.  But  every  false 
or  weak  man  brought  forward,  crowds  out  a  true  one.  As 
we  have  only  a  limited  time  and  capacity  to  enjoy,  it  is  impor- 
tant that  our  means  be  not  wasted  and  our  desires  frustrated. 

If  competition  be  freely  invited,  the  fear  of  losing  his  position 
would  spur  the  American  sculptor  to  that  amount  of  study 
which  is  absolutely  necessary  for  him,  if  he  would  compete  with 
the  European  in  the  quality  of  his  work,  not  to  speak  of  surpass- 
ing him,  —  which  I  believe  he  could,  judging  from  the  progress 
made  in  busts,  and  some  ideal  statues  and  compositions  of  per- 
sons not  yet  known  to  fame,  were  he  to  pay  the  same  attention 
to  his  preliminary  education  that  his  rival  does.  With  Amer- 
icans, and  English  too,  it  is  quite  common,  after  learning  to  draw 
a  few  common  objects  in  a  common  way,  to  open  a  studio,  and 

usual  run  of  fancy  heads,  is  eighty  to  one  hundred  dollars  by  contract.  A  por- 
trait-bust, life-size,  costs  higher,  and  it  is  less  remunerative  because  seldom  re- 
peated; but  two  hundred  dollars  would  cover  the  cost  of  the  bust,  including  the 
time  in  taking  the  clay  model.  A  heroic-sized  statue  in  marble  costs  about  two 
thousand  dollars  to  make;  repetitions  of  the  ordinary  parlor  statues,  Eves, 
Greek  Slaves,  Judiths,  and  their  like,  from  eight  hundred  to  one  thousand. 
The  profit  on  large  monuments  is  so  large  as  to  turn  towards  sculpture  consid- 
erable ordinary  business  talent,  which,  as  regards  art,  had  better  be  left  to  its 
common  pursuits.  The  "  Cavour  "  statue,  second  quality'  of  Carrara  marble, 
sixteen  feet  high,  imposing  and  respectable,  lately  erected  at  Leghorn,  cost  by 
contract  twenty-five  thousand  francs.  We  often  pay  ten  thousaud  dollars  for 
statues  no  better  executed,  of  ordinary  life-size. 


STUDIES  FROM  LIFE. 


307 


advertise  themselves  as  sculptors,  sometimes  obtaining  great 
commissions  before  giving  evidence  of  ability  to  draw  tlie  human 
figure  correctly.  Now  something  more  is  necessary  to  malie  a 
sculptor  than  to  be  able  to  pat  clay  into  a  seeming  likeness  of  a 
man  or  woman,  and  then  give  the  model  to  cheap  workmen  to 
be  fashioned  into  marble,  while  the  model-maker  spends  more 
time  in  studying  the  means  to  open  the  purses  of  patrons  than 
to  perfect  himself  in  sculpture.  How  many  of  our  sculptors,  for 
instance,  can  draw  the  human  figure,  much  less  design  a  great 
composition  or  group  ?  European  galleries  are  filled  with  the 
drawings  of  the  Giotteschi,  Donatello,  Ghiberti,  and  their  peers  ; 
the  modern  European  academicians  and  artists  are  rigorous  in 
their  life-studies,  and  we  see  the  results  in  their  superior  knowl- 
edge and  practice  of  form.  But  what  will  our  galleries  have 
to  show,  centuries  hence,  of  original  sketches  and  drawings 
in  evidence  of  the  imposing  but  fleeting  reputations  of  the 
day  ?  It  is  as  easy  to  hire  an  accomplished  professional  designer 
in  Italy  as  an  experienced  modeller  ;  but  no  talent  on  their  part 
will  suffice  to  carry  the  fame  of  another  to  posterity,  unless  it  is 
likewise  based  on  his  own  capacity  to  execute,  and  the  public 
find  manual  proof  of  it  in  his  own  handiwork.  Recently  a 
young  Englishman  advertised  himself  as  a  sculptor  in  one  of  the 
chief  Italian  cities.  There  chanced  to  enter  his  studio  a  dis- 
tinguished painter,  who  asked  him  if  he  knew  anything  of  draw- 
ing. He  showed  him  some  crude  efforts  of  his  school-days  in 
evidence  that  he  did.  The  painter  kindly  pointed  out  their 
utter  unfitness  as  a  qualification  for  his  profession,  advised  him 
to  take  down  his  sign  and  to  study  seven  years  at  least  in  life- 
schools  before  putting  it  out  again,  which,  to  the  credit  of  the 
good  sense  of  the  premature  sculptor,  he  determined  to  do.  The 
artist  whose  heart  is  in  his  work,  allows  nothing  to  leave  his 
studio  which  has  not  the  marks  of  his  hand.  There  is  a  name- 
less something  which  he  alone  can  bestow ;  and  that  cannot  be 
mechanically  copied  by  the  most  skilled  stone-cutter.  Michael 
Angelo,  the  sincerest,  greatest,  loftiest-minded  type  of  an  artist 
that  modern  civilization  has  begotten,  worked  assiduously,  night 
and  day,  on  his  statues,  knowing  well  that  no  hireling  could 
carry  out  his  thought  to  its  entire  fulfilment,  however  service- 
able he  might  be  in  preparing  the  statue  to  receive  the  final 
touches  of  his  chisel.  Examine,  also,  his  numerous  drawings 
and  designs  ;  the  preparatory  wax  or  terra-cotta  models  ;  the 
unmistakable  evidences  of  the  intense  study  which  he  bestowed 


308 


HARRIET  HOSMER, 


on  every  object  before  lie  deemed  it  to  be  worthy  of  being  given 
to  the  public.  As  he  practised,  so  did  Razzi,  Raphael,  Leo- 
nardo, Giorgione,  Titian,  Correggio,  and  the  whole  galaxy  of  the 
"old  masters,"  whose  example,  considering  what  they  did,  de- 
serves to  be  more  followed  than  it  is  at  present  by  those  of  our 
men  who  look  with  pity,  if  they  look  at  all,  upon  them,  for 
being  obliged  to  study  so  much. 

If  they  will  not  imitate  the  old  men,  I  commend  to 
H.  Hosmer.  ([^q  example  of  a  new  woman,  who  has  in  this 

respect  achieved  reputation,  and  with  it  fortune.  I  speak  of 
Harriet  Hosmer.  Her  robust  talent  is  the  result  of  robust 
study  and  energy.  Having  determined  to  become  a  sculptor, 
the  first  thing  to  learn  was  the  anatomy  of  the  human  figure,  as 
well  as  scientific  design.  She  is  inclined  to  overdo  the  material 
in  man,  but  it  exists,  whether  as  "  Benton,"  "  Puck,"  or  a  "  Faun." 
They  are  solid,  substantial  beings,  the  fruit  of  a  certain  intellect- 
ual grasp  of  her  subject,  or  facility  of  adaptation  of  the  labors 
of  others,  mingled,  when  needs  be,  with  genuine  humor  of  her 
own.  Despite  the  cumbersome,  conventional  "  Zenobia,"  a  clap- 
trap statue  intended  for  popular  exhibitions,  the  influence  of 
Miss  Hosmer  is  a  sound  one,  inasmuch  as  it  is  based  on  fun- 
damental study,  and  a  determination  to  win  her  position  by  hard 
work.  It  is  also  evident  that  slie  thinks  the  old  masters  can 
teach  her  something,  by  the  use  she  at  times  makes  of  their 
conceptions.  Her  style  is  a  decided  rebuke  to  inane  sentimental- 
ists of  the  Powers  class,  which  is  a  weak  echo  of  the  third-rate 
classical  manner  after  it  had  abandoned  beauty  for  prettiness. 
Miss  Hosmer's  manner  is  thoroughly  realistic.  Her  attempt  at 
the  pretty  in  "  Zenobia  "  was  a  decided  failure,  because  her  inven- 
tion and  skill  do  not  run  in  this  direction.  She  has  a  knowledge 
of  form  not  possessed  by  the  sentimentalists  whose  works  are  so 
commonly  praised  for  that  feature,  and  their  charming  idealism 
of  character,  though  really  without  merit  in  either.  With  them 
one  type  of  head,  borrowed  from  the  antique,  made  characterless 
in  the  transmission,  does  duty  for  numberless  types  of  sentiments, 
all  bearing  the  same  monotonous  outlines  of  features  and  same- 
ness of  expression.  Idealism  of  this  sort  cloys  the  brain  as 
sweetmeats  the  stomach.  If  beauty,  unlit  of  soul,  soon  becomes 
tiresome,  mere  prettiness  does  much  sooner.  In  this  kind  of 
statuary  there  is  a  certain  mechanical  roundness  and  smoothness 
of  surface,  which  passes  for  art.  But  let  the  spectator  go 
straightway  from  their  daintily  polished  limbs,  so  like  ivory  turn- 


AMERICAN  TYPE  OF  BEAUTY. 


309 


ing,  to  good  examples  of  antique  and  mediaeval  work,  say  from  the 
"  Greek  Slave  "  or  "  Eve  "  of  Powers,  to  the  «  Theseus"  of  the 
Parthenon,  the  "  Athlete  "  of  the  Vatican,  or  the  "  St.  George  "  of 
Donatello,  and  he  will  at  once  detect  the  vital  distinction  between 
delicate  external  finish  and  truthful  form.  Life  in  a  statue  is 
analogous  to  life  in  a  man  in  its  organic  appearance,  so  far  as 
form  can  express  it.  Unless  it  has  the  same  structural  look  of 
a  surface  answering  to  the  anatomy  within,  bones,  joints,  muscles, 
nerves,  veins,  viscera,  heart,  lungs,  and  brains  beneath,  so  to 
speak,  a  flexible,  marble  skin,  fitting  them,  as  in  the  live  being, 
with  an  imperceptible  gradation  of  curves  that  respond  to  every 
movement  or  position,  —  unless  the  statue  suggests  in  some  de- 
gree this  organization,  it  is  an  artistic  failure.  The  Greek 
sculptor,  by  close  observation  of  the  vital  functions  of  nature, 
joined  to  the  assiduous  use  of  his  chisel,  acquired  a  certain 
instinct  or  feeling  for  form  which  guided  him  aright,  and  imparts 
itself  almost  unconsciously  to  the  spectator.  Regard  for  a  mo- 
ment the  time-eaten  "  Torso  "  of  the  Vatican.  Beneath  its  rid- 
dled surface,  so  exquisitely  graduated  in  action  and  shape  to  the 
internal  organs,  we  see  the  immense  muscular  power  and  gigan- 
tic strength  of  frame.  Despite  the  mutilation,  it  asserts  itself  a 
complete,  living  being ;  the  whole  idea  leaps  from  the  broken 
mass,  and,  like  the  "  Prisoners "  of  Michael  Angelo  in  the 
Louvre,  it  dwarfs  all  adjacent  work,  by  whomsoever  done. 

Elaboration  of  surface  fails  to  compensate  for  the  loss  of  that 
structural  unity  which  puts  each  part  in  its  exact  relation  to 
the  organic  whole.  But  something  more  is  requisite.  A 
statue  presumes  truth  of  intellectual  as  well  as  anatomical  char- 
acterization. No  work  challenges  criticism  so  boldly.  It  says, 
in  public,  as  one  man  meets  his  peer,  "  Know  me."  If  there 
be  defect  in  modelling,  yet  strength  of  character,  the  greater 
truth  charitably  hides  the  absence  of  the  latter,  and  we  recog- 
nize our  friend.  The  drawback  to  American  sculpture  in  gen- 
eral is  its  defective  modelling  and  character.  Palmer  evidently 
seeks  to  avoid  inane  idealism,  but  goes  too  far  in  the  opposite 
direction.  He  has  fancy,  but  errs  in  selection.  His  principle 
of  going  direct  to  nature  is  correct,  but  the  choice  becomes 
ignoble  or  common.  The  American  type  of  female  beauty, 
which  he  aims  to  express,  in  his  hands  becomes  heavy  and  com 
monplace ;  the  limbs  often  look  spongy,  and  the  features,  though 
naive,  coarse  and  unrefined.  This  is  the  more  to  be  regretted, 
because  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  elements  of  our  best  de- 


310 


OUR  EQUESTRIAN  STATUES. 


veloped  women  are  such  that,  joined  to  their  extremely  fine 
physical  organization,  we  might  expect  to  combine  out  of  them 
for  sculpture  an  idealism  of  type  and  form  which  should  mark 
for  our  race  a  higher  standard  of  beauty  and  aim  in  life  than 
even  the  old  Grecian. 

It  would  be  folly  to  consider  some  sculpture  seriously.  Clark 
Mills'  equestrian  statues  look  like  prodigious  congressional  jokes 
on  art,  or  amiable  weaknesses,  similar  to  the  commission  for  a 
heroic  statue  given  to  a  young  miss  who  had  never  seen  a  real 
one,  and  which  must  be  constructed  out  of  her  own  conscious- 
ness. The  nation  now  looks  for  this  by-play  periodically  at  the 
hands  of  its  Conscript  Fathers.  But  the  humor  becomes  too 
broad  when  it  puts  the  grave  Washington  astride  a  Bucepha- 
lian  burlesque,  with  the  horse's  tail  curling  so  tightly  between 
his  legs  as  to  make  him  recoil,  as  if  bracing  firmly  against  a 
Brown.  whirlwind.  This,  too,  when  Brown  had  already 
Ball.  shown  his  capacity  to  treat  the  subject  so  worthily  in 

the  dignified  and  spirited  "  Washington  "  of  Union  Square,  New 
York.  Ball's,  in  Boston,  does  more  justice  to  the  action  of 
the  horse  than  his  rider,  who  sits  well,  is  conscientiously  and 
patiently  modelled,  giving  a  fair  likeness  of  the  original  as  to 
form  and  costume,  but  is  no  adequate  appreciation  of  his 
greatest  qualities,  besides  showing  a  fiddler-like  movement  of 
the  right  arm,  with  the  drawn  sword.  Ball's  realism  is  too 
sturdy.  His  subjects  are  so  intensely  homely  and  external  as 
to  make  one,  while  looking  at  them,  all  but  disbelieve  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul. 

Jackson's  realism  is  broader  and  more  inventive.  He  realizes 
character,  and  hints  at  considerable  undeveloped  force  in  him- 
self. His  allegorical  group,  to  be  placed  over  one  of  the  gates 
of  the  reservoir  of  New  York,  is  a  well-composed,  decorative 
work,  appropriate  and  forcible  in  detail  and  mass. 
^  ^  Ward  is  a  realist  of  still  superior  stamp.    He  and 

his  productions  have  an  artistic  ring  of  the  older 
time,  joined  to  the  vigorous  new  thought  of  the  present.  Both 
Ward  and  Brown  do  what  they  know,  and  know  what  they  do. 
Wanting  as  we  are  in  idealistic  art  proper,  we  may  safely 
place  the  reputation  of  our  sculpture,  in  comparison  with  the 
living  European,  in  their  hands.  Ward's  "  Indian  Hunter,"  as 
did  Hosmer's  "  Sleeping  Faun,"  upheld  American  sculpture 
with  honor  for  clever  invention  and  realistic  force,  particularly 
the  "  Hunter,"  which  was  an  indigenous  idea,  in  the  Exposition 
of  1867  at  Paris. 


WILLIAM  STORY. 


311 


When  I  wrote  the  "  Art-Idea,"  I  hoped  so  much 
of  American  art  that  now,  in  looking  over  the  prod- 
uct  of  the  intervening  time,  I  fear  ray  wishes  misled  my  judg- 
ment. For  a  brief  moment  it  really  appeared  as  if  in  Story 
w^e  had,  at  last,  something  that  savored  of  genius.  But  a 
closer  examination  of  his  numerous  efforts  dispels  this  illusion. 
Industrious  he  assuredly  is,  possessing  fancy  and  some  skill 
of  invention ;  but  his  strong  point  is  his  receptive  faculty, 
which  gets  good  from  others,  and  strains  it  through  his  own 
mind.  His  antiquarian  knowledge  serves  him  well  in  the 
decorative  part  of  his  sculpture.  Ornaments  and  accessories 
are  rightly  chosen  and  tastefully  placed,  though  the  choice  of 
motives  appears  somewhat  sensational.  "  Cleopatra  poisoning 
Herself,"  "  Judith  having  slain  Holofernes,"  "  Medea  intend- 
ing the  Murder  of  her  Children,"  "  Delilah  after  betraying 
Samson,"  "  Saul  mad,"  and  "  Sappho  meditating  Suicide,"  are 
hazardous  topics  even  for  genius.  How  genius  works,  small 
things  show  as  well  as  great ;  indeed,  the  little  fact  becomes  the 
new  and  great  one  by  its  treatment.  There  is  a  masterly 
sketch  in  the  Vatican  of  "  St.  Jerome,"  by  Leonardo.  The 
usual  way,  even  with  the  best  of  the  "  old  masters,"  was  to 
make  the  lion  a  sleek,  well-behaved  animal,  quietly  sleeping, 
while  the  saint  pounded  his  breast  with  a  stone  until  it  was 
gory.  Leonardo's  lion  smells  the  blood,  and,  with  the  instinct 
of  the  forest,  turns  and  r^tars  at  him  in  maddened  sympathy. 
Da  Vinci  comprehended  what  a  wild  beast  must  do  under  the 
circumstances,  and  by  the  exhibition  of  its  instinct,  though  sub- 
dued in  its  rage  by  the  miraculous  magnetism  of  the  saint,  brings 
most  forcibly  home  to  us  the  agony  of  his  desert-life. 

The  "  Moses  "  of  Michael  Angelo  is  every  inch  a  prophet- 
king,  majestic  and  fearful  to  gaze  upon,  while  the  action  that 
intensifies  his  character  is  his  unconscious  handling  of  his  long 
beard.  Only  a  great  artist  conceives  and  executes  details  like 
this  and  that  of  the  lion  in  such  a  way  as  to  emphasize  the  entire 
conception.  The  "  Saul  "  of  Story  is  his  best  work,  because,  hav- 
ing the  "  Moses  "  at  hand,  he  bestowjs  on  it  a  somewhat  similar 
feature  and  treatment.  Contrast,  however,  the  idea  and  feeling 
as  it  passes  from  genius  to  talent,  and  note  the  gulf  between 
them  !  "  Saul "  has  a  certain  breadth  and  imposingness  of  whole 
which  make  one  marvel  more  at  the  weak  points  of  other  statues. 
But  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  action  which  was  suited  to  the  ab- 
sorption in  thought  of  the  prophet,  is  one  characteristic  of  a  man 


312 


WILLIAM  STORY. 


on  the  verge  of  frantic  madness.  It  implies  the  repose  of  deep, 
sane  meditation,  not  incipient  frenzy.  I  have  before  me  an  ar- 
chaic statuette  in  bronze  of  "  Confucius,"  seated  on  a  rock,  hold- 
ing his  writings  in  his  right  hand.  The  Chinese  artist,  in  his 
rude  way,  intended  the  philosopher  and  lawgiver  of  his  nation 
to  appear  imposing,  somewhat  after  the  style  of  the  "  Moses." 
Instead,  he  looks  burly  and  smiling,  but  is  deeply  reflecting,  and 
apparently  watching  the  world  beneath  him,  while  with  his 
left  hand  he  toys  unconsciously  with  his  venerable  beard. 
Genius,  for  this  action  is  a  touch  of  it  in  the  Oriental  im- 
age, speaks  the  same  language  in  the  Chinese  and  Tuscan  artists, 
though  so  widely  separated  by  time  and  distance.  The  Amer- 
ican, in  appropriating,  misapplies  it. 

Story's  workmanship  is  solid  and  good,  but  he  gives  little 
evidence  of  a  feeling  for  beauty,  or  even  grace.  Prettiness, 
however,  in  his  hands  has  not  the  insipidity  of  the  ordinary  sen- 
timentalists. In  his  "  Sphinx  "  and  "  Cupid,"  his  manner  is  melo- 
dramatic, with  a  tendency  to  forced  conceit.  The  motive  is  taken 
out  of  the  sublime  into  the  little  ;  the  mystical  let  down  to  the 
curious-sensual,  with  whatever  compensation  dainty  finish  can 
bestow. 

So  much  ambitious  ideal  work  as  his  studio  shows,  inter- 
spersed as  it  is  with  heroic-sized  portraiture,  of  which  the 
"  Quincy  "  is  the  best,  and  "Everett"  the  worst  example,  and 
bad  busts  like  the  Brownings,  to  .be  well  done,  cannot  be 
crowded  into  a  few  years.  Such  haste  of  conception  and  exe- 
cution necessarily  causes  many  defects.  Though  the  expression 
of  passionate  sorrow  in  "  Delilah  "  is  strongly  given,  the 
shoulders  are  weak  and  ill  proportioned ;  "  Sappho "  has  a 
vapid  face  and  a  feeble  figure  ;  the  drapery  of  "  Medea  "  clings 
too  tight;  "Cleopatra"  sits  uneasily  because  of  awkwardly 
placed  hips  ;  and  Story  has  forgotten  that  she  was  wholly 
Greek  in  race  and  culture  ;  her  face  has  no  ethnographical  de- 
cisive type,  and  the  mouth  is  vulgar.  Noses  are  in  general 
ignoble  and  carelessly  modelled.  The  African  "  Sibyl  "  is  the 
most  original  and  best  executed.  These  productions,  although 
superior  in  thought  and  aim  to  most  of  those  of  the  school,  leave 
the  impression  of  incompleteness  of  idea  and  superficial  treat- 
ment. 

American  Pcrhaps  America  is  destined  to  make  its  most  rapid 
architecture,  artistic  development  in  architecture.  Its  national  ex- 
igencies point  to  this,  because  a  wealthy  democracy  has  as  great 


STYLE  OF  OUR  ARCHITECTURE. 


313 


a  passion  to  be  housed  magnificently  as  any  aristocracy.  The 
most  beautiful  palaces  of  the  Old  World  were  built  by  merchants. 
Ours  imitate  them  in  cost,  if  not  in  taste.  The  present  aim  is 
sumptuous  comfort  and  upholstery  decoration ;  and  it  is  seldom 
that  an  architect  of  correct  principles  is  permitted  to  carry  out 
his  ideas.  He  is  required  to  be  a  house  or  shop  builder,  and 
forego  his  highest  functions  of  beauty  builder,  which,  if  allowed, 
he  mio^ht  make  to  agree  with  the  former.  The  effect  is  seen  in 
its  worst  in  the  prevailing  centipede  style  of  stores,  mounted  as 
they  are  on  spindle  iron  legs  and  a  substructure  of  plate-glass, 
than  which  anything  move  viciously  threatening  in  appearance 
and  incongruous  in  adaptation  could  not  be  invented.^  Both 
dwellings  and  shops  have  become  greedy  of  ornamentation,  inside 
and  out ;  but  its  laws  are  so  misapplied,  that  taste  is  mostly 
sacrificed  to  a  crude  display  of  inappropriate  or  unmeaning  dec- 
orative detail,  or  jumbled  from  various  types  of  architecture, 
the  whole  resulting  in  -a  patchwork  of  styles  almost  as  strangely 
ugly  and  ill  chosen  as  what  came  into  vogue  during  the  later 
Renaissance.  Still,  as  knowledge  is  increasing  and  better  ex- 
amples multiplying,  we  may  hope  for  the  development  of  a 
national  architecture  which,  while  securing  the  essentials  of 
light,  ventilation,  and  shelter,  shall  admit  enough  of  beauty 
to  gratify  the  instinctive  craving  for  it.  Our  wants  and  aims 
are  more  diversified  and  freer  in  expansion  than  those  of  any 
past  people.  There  must  arise  a  corresponding  expression  in 
architecture,  the  concrete  growing  out  of  the  abstract,  just  as 
the  rock  and  plant  come  from  the  primary  elements  in  nature, 
adapting  themselves  with  unerring  instinct  to  their  parent  soils. 
How,  when,  and  by  whom  our  art  will  thus  be  crowned,  is  a 
secret  of  God.  When  the  white  workman  turned  rebel,  a  negro 
assistant  completed  the  cast  of  Crawford's  "  Liberty,"  which 
now  surmounts  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 

Architecture  caimot  be  properly  treated  in  my  brief  space.  I 
can  only  hint  what  it  wants  by  telling  what  it  is.    Its  present 

1  If  much  money  and  some  architectural  invention  or  pretension,  as  in  the 
Sears'  buildings,  Boston,  are  attempted,  the  constructive  effect  of  the  whole  and 
beauty  of  detail  are  certain  to  be  marred  or  wholly  lost  by  extravagant  adver- 
tising signs.  Indeed,  the  majority  of  expensive  edifices  in  America  for  business 
purposes  are  but  prodigious  show  cards;  Avhole  costly  facades  being  hidden  by 
huge  letters  of  the  alphabet.  That  advertising  and  architecture  can  be  made 
to  agree  in  general  effect,  and  the  former  made  an  agreeable  feature  of  the  orna- 
mentation of  the  latter,  the  newly  erected  la9ade  of  the  Corsi  palace  at  Flor- 
euce  sufficiently  demonstrates. 


314 


OUR  STANDARD  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 


features  are  transitory,  borrowed  of  the  Old  World,  and  either  tor- 
tured into  inelegance  or  fashioned  into  crudity,  just  as  the  am- 
bitions of  wealth,  and  exigencies  of  trade,  without  any  aesthetic 
cravings,  demand.  Painting  and  sculpture  speak  to  us  as  we 
speak  to  one  another.  However  fast  our  friendship,  there  is 
something  in  every  man  that  does  not  come  up  to  our  ideal.  So 
in  the  individual  arts.  But,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  archi- 
tecture puts  them  all  in  unity  with  its  mass,  and  appeals  to  our, 
consciousness  on  the  great  plane  of  nature  itself,  evoking  prima- 
rily a  synthetic  pleasure  in  it  as  a  whole  rather  than  an  analytic 
delight  of  detail.  In  this  respect  it  moves  us  as  does  orchestral 
'•music.  This  unspoken  sympathy  with  our  highest  aspirations 
is  most  soothing  and  cheering.  I  never  pass  Giotto's  Campanile 
without  feeling  my  heart  lightened,  as  if  a  celestial  ray  had 
descended  upon  me.  When  sorrowing  or  suffering,  I  go  to  his 
Duomo,  walk  about  it,  and  am  comforted  in  its  presence,  not 
from  any  association  of  creed,  but  because  it  is  a  triumphant  ex- 
pression of  the  great  human  soul  of  its  belief  in  the  Infinite. 
Until  America  has  produced  something  analogous  to  the  genius 
of  the  Old  World  in  art,  it  behooves  us,  in  speaking  of  our  juve- 
nile efforts,  to  place  them  on  their  actual  level  in  the  scale  of 
civilization. 

Were  the  standard  of  knowledge  of  art  with  us  equal  to  that 
of  almost  any  other  branch  of  education,  the  most  of  what  I 
have  said,  would  be  needless  truism.  I  give  it  because  of  the 
much  conceited  assertion  and  many  questions  of  elementary  na- 
ture, that  come  to  me  from  persons  by  whom  I  am  only  too  happy 
to  be  instructed  in  those  matters  of  science  or  general  affairs  to 
which  they  have  given  thought.  This  ignorance  is  the  result  of 
inattention  and  indifference  to  the  subject.  The  latter  invari- 
ably disappears  with  the  former.  But  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  get  an  American  to  look  at  it  seriously,  other  than  in  an  utili- 
tarian or  conservative  aspect.  Consequently,  in  the  present  ap- 
athy of  feeling  in  regard  to  art,  those  who  would  urge  its  claims 
with  a  sincere  desire  to  have  them  considered,  must  first  advance 
those  which  really  are  secondary,  fundamentally  viewed.  The 
imperative,  absolute,  final  function  of  art  is  enjoyment.  But  the 
essentials  of  its  being  are  such  that  it  cannot  exist  in  a  healthful 
condition  without  political  and  religious  liberty,  and  tiiose  intel- 
lectual and  social  conditions  which  best  promote  the  moral  and 
physical  welfare  of  society.  Art  creates  a  Central  Park.  Its 
beauty  and  sanitary  advantages  are  just  so  much  counterpoise  to 


DECEPTIVE  CRITICISM. 


315 


the  criminal  contagion  and  foul  air  of  the  slums  of  New  York. 
Besides,  therefore,  their  purely  aesthetic  features,  public  parks 
are  moral  physical  reformers  on  a  scale  that  reaches  every  in- 
habitant of  a  city.  I  might  enlarge  on  the  taxable  property  and 
new  industries  they  create ;  but  this  is  too  obvious  an  argument 
to  require  mention  in  this  connection. 

The  educational  advantages  of  galleries  and  museums,  and 
their  conservative  and  refining  influence  on  society,  in  teaching 
respect  for  the  past,  and  affording  the  means  of  estimating  the 
actual  progress  of  manners  and  ideas  of  various  races,  are  less 
notably  considered.  In  America  the  popular  notion  of  them  is 
simply  as  depositories  of  curiosities  to  amuse  an  idle  hour, 
but  not  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  critically  examined. 
The  general  impression  of  their  contents  is  that  they  are  well 
enough  for  those  who  made  them,  but  we  have  got  beyond  all 
this.  Even  for  no  higher  purpose  they  deserve  to  be  multi- 
plied ;  for  they  beguile  many  from  haunts  of  vice,  and  in  the 
end  will  assuredly  come  to  be  esteemed  on  more  rational  if  not 
aesthetic  grounds.  As  it  has  taken  several  centuries  to  reduce 
the  sense  of  beauty  in  us  as  a  race  to  a  mere  negative  state, 
probably  it  will  take  as  many  more  of  culture  and  encourage- 
ment in  the  opposite  direction  to  make  it  a  vital  force  again. 
Meantime,  it  is  wise  in  its  advocates  to  urge  it  onward  by  pre- 
senting it  in  that  shape  which  commends  it  most  strongly  to  the 
interests  and  intelligence  of  the  people,  even  if  its  highest  as- 
pects are  momentarily  obscured. 

It  will  be  urged  against  me,  as  it  has  already  been,  that  I 
depreciate  my  country's  art,  and  am  hostile  to  her  artists.  But 
what  do  we  gain  in  the  end  by  exaggerations  of  any  sort  ?  If 
we  deceive  ourselves,  the  rest  of  the  world  sees  the  truth,  and 
jeers  us  for  lying.  Bonaparte's  false  bulletins  do  not  make 
him  any  greater  as  a  general,  but  infinitely  less  as  a  man.  I 
must  give  the  truth  in  art  precisely  as  I  see  it  in  relation  to  the 
universal  point  of  view  from  which  I  have  tried  to  comprehend 
the  subject  as  a  whole.  Artists  and  nationality  become  of  sec- 
ondary consideration  to  art  itself.  Much  as  I  value  the  good 
will  of  every  one,  I  cannot  consent  to  suppress  my  own  convic- 
tions lest  oflfehce  be  taken  by  those  who  look  at  the  topic  in  a 
narrower  or  more  personal  sense.  Yet  those  who  have  made  a 
study  of  art,  have  no  need  of  my  experiences.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  to  whom  they  may  be  necessary,  are  likely  to  dislike 
me  for  criticising  their  favorite  notions,  or  reject  them  in  disgust 


316 


LOT  OF  THE  ART  CRITIC. 


at  first  sight.  There  are  already  too  many  either  absolutely  ig- 
norant critics  or  those  who  wish  to  make  every  one  feel  comfort- 
able at  the  expense  of  truth  and  the  hindrance  of  real  progress  : 
amiable  optimists,  whose  fulsome,  indiscrimiuating  praise  must 
be  disaofreeable  to  everv  right-minded  artist.  The  existence  of 
"The  Nation"  weekly  paper  of  New  York  proves  that  an  inde- 
pendent criticism  of  men,  political  measures,  and  literature,  irre- 
spective of  party  and  clique,  although  a  new  feature,  is  welcome 
to  an  increasing  class  of  readers.  In  time  it  will  be  so  with  my 
theme.  Meanwhile,  I  have  to  thank  the  "London  Reader"  of 
October,  1864,  in  its  notice  of  "  Art-Idea,"  for  its  appreciation  of 
my  endeavor.  It  says,  "  The  fervent  gravity  with  which  the 
author  treats  the  subject  as  a  whole,  the  deep  importance  which 
he  attaches  to  fine  art  as  a  manifestation  of  the  human  soul  and 
one  great  influence  upon  it,  the  missionary  [thanks  for  the  word] 
energy  wherewith  he  preaches  his  creed,"  etc.  "  To  say  that 
this  American  author  is  quite  up  to  the  general  European  level 
of  cultivated  opinion  on  such  topics,  would  be  too  little  ;  whether 
in  Europe  or  America,  he  would  belong  to  the  select  few 
who  have  spent  a  deal  of  time  and  thought  upon  the  subject, 
and  whose  opinion  may  mostly  be  accepted,  and,  when  not  ac- 
cepted, still  acknowledged  as  qualified."  Also  the  "  Saturday 
Review "  observes,  "  We  venture  to  advise  Mr.  Jarves  to  em- 
ploy his  powers  of  observation  and  language  in  a  detailed  criti- 
cism of  the  modern  European  schools.  This  might  confer  on 
the  English-reading  public  a  benefit  which  they  have  not  yet 
received." 

I  plead  guilty  to  egotism  in  these  quotations  ;  but  without 
some  words  of  recognition  and  encouragement  from  qualified 
persons,  I  should  scarcely  be  justified  in  urging  an  unwelcome 
theme  on  my  countrymen  from  only  my  own  sense  of  duty,  with- 
out other  endorsement  than  individual  judgment  or  enthusiasm. 
In  the  present  condition  of  art  at  home,  the  sole  compensation 
for  the  time  and  toil  given  to  the  subject,  lies  in  the  approval  of 
the  few  who  also  study  it  as  a  means  to  a  great  national  end,  as 
well  as  personal  culture. 

None  but  the  experienced  can  know  the  weight  of  public  op- 
probrium and  social  misconception  that  is  the  lot  of  an  art  critic, 
if  his  opinions  run  counter  to  the  views  of  interested  parties. 
The  topic  itself  is  a  delicate  one,  and  the  artistic  temperament, 
when  not  well  balanced  by  intellectual  training,  sensitive  and 
not  unfrequently  irritable  and  jealous.  An  author  receives  a 
criticism  with  thankfulness  that  would  make  many  an  artist  con- 


JUST  CRITICISM. 


317 


sider  himself  to  be  the  most  ill  used  of  men.  But  this  morbid 
sensitiveness  is  only  an  additional  reason  why  he  should  be  sub- 
jected to  the  same  rules  of  criticism  as  any  other  profession. 
An  unjust  review  is  as  likely  to  spoil  the  sale  of  a  book  as  of  a 
picture.  A  just  criticism,  if  accepted  as  given,  will  help  educate 
author  and  artist.  Either,  in  publishing  his  work,  takes  his 
chance  of  success,  as  a  general  in  giving  battle.  Whatever  hap- 
pens, in  the  main  the  result  lies  in  him.  Some  fight  for  one  sort 
of  victory,  and  some  for  another.  He  who  figlits  for  truth,  must 
expect  to  take  as  well  as  give  hard  knocks.  If  the  artist  fights 
for  less,  his  reward  will  be  apportioned  to  his  aim.  Even  in 
those  rare  instances  of  excessive  sensitiveness  or  incapacity  of 
obtaining  a  hearing,  real  merit  is  sure  in  the  end  to  beat  blatant 
self-assertion  and  flimsy  execution.  The  wronged  must  work 
and  wait. 

Most  criticism,  until  recently,  has  been  done  in  behalf  of  some 
private  consideration  rather  than  in  the  interest  of  the  people  at 
large.  Duty  to  the  public  is  imperative  ;  friendship  is  a  side- 
issue,  agreeable  or  painful,  as  it  may  happen.  Sometimes  there 
is  a  naivete  in  the  complaints  of  injustice  done  which  makes  one 
heartily  wish  he  could  do  all  that  is  desired.  Roe  once  said  to 
me  of  Doe,  "  I  think  your  remarks  are  just,  but  you  say  too 
much  of  him  and  too  little  of  me." 

Possibly  Roe  was  in  the  right.  But  the  artist  who  keeps 
primarily  in  view  art  itself,  that  is  to  say,  its  "  vertu^  or  the 
completed  perfection  and  fitness  of  its  resources  and  means  to 
the  contemplated  end,  clinging  to  the  vital  sense  of  the  Latin 
"  virtus  "  (meaning  the  manhood  or  the  supreme  excellence  of 
an  object)  as  his  final  aim,  —  such  an  one  will  say  to  any  critic 
what  was  said  once  to  me  by  a  sensitive,  right-minded  sculp- 
tor :  "  I  prefer  to  have  the  shortcomings  of  my  work  pointed 
out,  than  to  have  it  inordinately  jjraised  in  the  ordinary  tone 
of  our  criticism,  regardless  of  any  intelligent  understanding 
of  its  qualities."  The  genuine  artist  is  sometimes  discour- 
aged at  the  apparent  insensibility  of  the  average  patron  to  his 
finest  ideal  conceptions,  and  the  readiness  with  which  he  buys 
the  commonest  realistic  works,  like  the  "  Boy  on  the  Tub  whit- 
tling," or  the  "  Girl  untying  her  Shoe,"  etc.  Each  style  has  its 
distinct  aim  ;  one  to  bestow  ideas  and  beauty  on  those  who 
can  appreciate  them,  the  other  to  get  as  much  money  in  ex- 
change for  as  little  brains  and  labor  as  possible.  To  effect  this, 
a  business  tact  is  requisite.  As  most  patrons  are  business  men, 
who  buy  on  the  whim  of  the  moment,  without  having  bestowed 


318 


FRESH  MOTIVES. 


any  serious  consideration  on  art,  they  are  readily  attracted  by 
those  mental  qualities  and  personal  habits  most  in  accord  with 
their  own.  Mistaking  secondary  for  primary  effects,  they  are 
easily  put  into  sympathy  with  the  business  artist,  who  is  so 
intelligible  in  his  speech  and  acts,  and  whose  works  have  a 
prosaic  character  or  material  aim.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
unbusiness-like  temperament  and  manner  of  a  true  artist  are 
liable  to  misconception,  while  his  ideas  and  ambitions  are  apt 
to  be  antagonistic  to  those  who  have  not  made  art  a  special 
study,  or  whose  feelings  do  not  flow  in  the  same  aesthetic  cur- 
rent. Hence  the  fictitious  artist  will  make  money,  while  the 
real  one  must  all  but  starve  until  his  merit  becomes  known  to 
cultivated  amateurs.  I  am  surprised  at  the  little  shrewdness 
shown  even  by  the  practical-minded  artists,  especially  our  sculp- 
tors in  their  choice  of  motives  from  others,  adhering  as  they  do 
so  largely  to  stale  classicaiisms,  personages  of  the  Bible,  and 
the  commonplaces  of  every-day  life,  when  Blake's  designs,  the 
Campana  bas-reliefs,  and  the  numerous  illustrated  works  on  an- 
tique and  mediaeval  monuments,  and  sculpture  and  painting  in 
general,  published  during  the  past  one  hundred  j^ears  in  Italy, 
open  to  them  rich  mines  of  motives  and  suggestions  almost 
unknown,  certainly  unworked,  in  this  generation.  Could  any 
thing  be  more  sublime,  more  Christian  in  idea,  or  better  adapted 
to  a  sepulchral  monument  than  Blake's  illustration  of  "  Death's 
Door  "  in  Blair's  "  Grave."  His  "  Book  of  Job  "  is  literally  alive 
with  glorious  hints  to  sculptors.  So  also  are  the  best  Etruscan 
comjDositious.  It  is  not  needful  to  plagiarize  outright,  but  to 
adopt  and  adapt  the  great  and  beautiful  conceptions  of  the  past 
to  our  own  spiritual  needs ;  filling  the  gap  which  exists  in  high 
art  between  the  actual  genius  of  other  days  and  the  j^rolific 
talent  of  our  own,  with  works  of  a  suggestive  character  until  the 
time  arrive  for  original  genius  to  descend  to  us  in  fresh  forms. 

Meantime  there  is  a  favorable  symptom  for  ideal  art  in  the 
recent  attempts  of  some  of  the  younger  men  to  produce  work 
of  a  superior  character.  Vedder's  characteristic  conceptions, 
as  yet  unrealized  in  permanent  paintings,  I  spoke  of  in  the 
"  Art-Idea."  Since  then  I  have  seen  a  sketch  for  a  great  pic- 
ture, by  Craig  of  Florence,  called  the  "  Vanishing  of  the  Il- 
lusions of  Youth,"  quite  Blake-like  in  feeling  and  meaning. 
Gould's  breezy  "  West  Wind  "  is  another  ingenious  attempt  to 
escape  from  the  bondage  of  effete  personifications  into  fresher, 
pertinent  styles ;  and  his  colossal  head  of  "  Christ,"  as  an  op- 
posuig  conception  to  that  of  "  Satan,"  also  by  him,  both  now  in 


CONNOLLY'S  "DEATH  AND  HONOR." 


319 


his  studio  at  Florence,  is  one  of  the  finest  felt  and  conceived 
idealisms  in  modern  sculpture.  Gould  has  shown  the  rare 
faculty,  genius  it  really  is,  of  throwing  into  form,  in  a  broad, 
interpenetrative  way,  the  essential  feeling  and  character  of  the 
Tempter  and  of  the  Saviour,  as  the  impersonifications  of  the 
evil  and  good  principles  inherent  in  humanity,  irrespective  of 
any  tamperings  with  his  own  individuality,  or  being  misled  into 
the  little  or  pretty.  They  are  positive  conceptions ;  both  of  a 
high,  although  widely  differing  quality  of  physical  beauty  ;  in- 
tellect paramount  in  the  "  Devil,"  love  in  the  "  Christ ; "  each 
largely  treated,  Shakespearian  in  force  of  personality.  So  far 
as  my  observation  extends,  they  are  the  most  complete  and 
profound  idealisms  in  our  sculpture ;  and  the  time  will  come  in 
America  when,  as  with  Blake's  compositions  in  England,  their 
merits  will  be  appreciated,  if  not  by  the  multitude,  by  those  who 
comprehend  what  high  art  aspires  to  render.  Brackett's  bust 
of  John  Brown,  owned  by  Mrs.  G.  Stearns,  Medford,  is  of 
similar  characteristic  excellence.  Exhibiting  with  Olympian 
breadth  of  sentiment  the  intense,  moral  heroism  of  the  re- 
former, it  is  an  American  type  of  a  Jove,  one  of  those  rare  sur- 
prises in  art,  irrespective  of  technical  finish  or  perfection  in 
modelling,  which  shows  in  what  high  degree  the  artist  was  im- 
pressed by  the  soul  of  his  sitter.  Connolly's  allegorical  group 
of  "  Death  and  Honor,"  consisting  of  five  figures  and  a  horse  in 
vigorous  action,  on  which  Death  sits,  revelling  in  slaughter,  hav- 
ing just  struck  down  Courage,  Perseverance,  and  Strength,  but 
stopped  and  disarmed  by  Honor,  if  not  all  a  nice  assthetic  taste 
would  require  in  its  treatment,  is  a  profound  idea,  harmoniously 
put  into  plastic  form,  and  calculated  to  incite  the  ambition  of 
other  of  our  young  sculptors.  Its  drawbacks  are  inexplicable 
disturbing  draperies,  defective  muscular  modelling,  and  some 
want  of  unity  in  proportions,  an  introduction  of  unnecessary 
lines,  which  knots  it  into  a  somewhat  confused  mass  and  super- 
fluous action,  like  the  tearing  down  by  Honor  of  the  banner  of 
Death,  causing  a  rhetorical  redundancy,  as  it  were,  of  composi- 
tion, at  the  expense  of  artistic  repose  and  simplicity,  and  some 
slight  crudity  of  application  in  the  allegory  as  an  entirety. 

Criticism,  however,  is  not  the  object  of  this  book.  It  has 
been  secondary  and  partial,  and  indulged  only  to  illustrate  the 
rules  and  principles  which  underlie  art  in  general.  There  is 
much  of  good  and  bad  art,  not  necessary  to  mention  in  this 
connection.  But  that  which  is  given  may  assist  the  reader  to 
be  his  own  critic. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


THE  MINOR  ARTS.  —  ORNAMENT  AND  DECORATION. 

the  preceding  chapters,  I  have  more  especially 
kept  in  sight  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture 
in  their  superior  testhetic  and  natural  aspects.  My 
aim  would  be  incomplete  were  not  a  glance  given 
to  art  in  its  more  social  and  domestic  phase,  in  which, 
asserting  its  being  exclusively  for  its  own  sake,  irrespective 
of  teaching,  worship,  or  illustration,  it  enters  into  familiar 
relations  with  every  individual  and  object,  in  the  shape  of 
Ornament  or  Decoration  ;  its  purpose  being  to  gratify  taste  by 
superadding  beauty  to  utility,  as  well  as  to  evoke  it  regardless 
of  any  practical  use.  In  this  form,  art  is  an  Eesthetic  distribu- 
tion and  combination  of  details,  rather  than  of  masses.  It 
adorns  speech,  literature,  manners,  dress,  utensils,  buildings  and 
grounds,  public  and  private ;  in  short,  every  thing  man  in- 
vents ;  for  there  is  nothing  too  homely  or  common,  not  to  be 
made  more  gratifying  to  our  senses  by  fitting  ornamention  or 
graceful  outline.  Without  this  {esthetic  addition,  although  the 
utility  of  an  object  be  complete,  our  satisfaction  in  it  is  incom- 
plete. 

Final  aim  The  final  aim  of  ornamentation  is  to  produce  intel- 
%sthetkle-'  lectual  repose,  or  that  mental  quietude  which  comes  of 
pose.  gratified  cravings  after  the  ideal,  just  as  a  belief  in  the 

immortality  of  the  soul  becomes  a  consolation  in  its  immediate 
shortcomings.  Every  human  being,  from  the  baby  in  arms  or 
the  untutored  savage  to  the  most  cultivated  mind,  feels  the  force 
of  this  instinct,  and  in  some  way  or  other  strives  to  gratify  it. 
However  nmch  people  may  disagree  in  their  definition  of  beauty, 
they  all  desire  it,  unless  they  be  of  that  rare  defective  mental  or- 
ganization which  cannot  see  deity  or  beauty  in  any  created  thing. 

Esthetic  repose  comes  from  harmony,  fitness,  and  adaptation  ; 
the  subordination  of  the  minor  functions  to  the  major,  and  the 
perfect  interblending  of  the  part  with  the  whole.  Excessive 
decoration,  like  exaggeration  of  language,  destroys  the  intent. 


RULE  OF  FASHION. 


321 


Misplaced  ornament  is  equivalent  to  mistakes  in  grammar,  caus- 
ing confusion  and  vulgarity.  The  style  of  dress,  manners, 
speech;  the  character  of  the  things  a  man  surrounds  himself 
with  ;  the  degree  and  quality  of  his  ornamentation ;  these  an- 
nounce his  intellectual  rank  to  his  neighbor.  As  taste  begets 
refinement,  the  "  rough  "  disappears  before  the  gentleman.  I 
now  confine  my  view  to  aesthetics  as  a  refining  social  element, 
admitting  that  a  cultivated  taste  and  irreproachable  exterior  can 
accompany  a  selfish  and  depraved  will.  Still  the  world  gains 
by  this  disguise ;  for  without  it  there  would  exist  the  brutal  vil- 
lain, while  no  one  can  act  the  gentleman  or  acquire  an  accom- 
plishment without  benefitting  society,  and  mitigating  the  evil 
within  himself. 

I  shall  not  give  a  technical  exposition  of  ornamentation,  but 
only  refer  to  some  of  its  rules  and  general  features.  A  fact 
that  has  had  its  natural  birth,  growth,  and  death,  eludes  resusci- 
tation ;  but  the  principle  which  was  the  germ  of  the  fact  be- 
longs to  whoever  can  detect  and  apply  it.  Modern  practice 
overlooks  this  law  of  nature  too  much.  Instead  of  seeking  to 
inform  itself  of  those  subtle  laws  which  were  discovered  and 
applied  to  decoration  by  the  ancients  and  medisevalists,  it  spends 
its  means  and  labor  in  futile  attempts  to  repeat  their  works  by 
the  cheapened  processes  of  manufacture.  We  get  heaps  of 
classical  and  mediaeval  designs,  without  the  informing  life  of 
the  originals,  and  their  conscious  sympathy  with  their  own 
times.  Far  better  is  it  to  preserve  the  models  for  instruction 
in  museums  than  to  debase  their  forms,  and  pervert  their  spirit, 
by  mechanical  enterprises  for  our  adornment.  Animated  by 
their  beauty,  we  might  then  hope  to  see  invented  forms  no  less 
appropriate  and  beautiful,  as  regards  our  civilization,  than  theirs 
appear  in  the  light  of  antiquity.  No  great  work  has  ever  been 
written  in  a  dead  tongue.  Whatever  mind  there  is  in  the  repro- 
duction of  antique  ornaments,  it  is  a  voice  from  the  tomb  of  na- 
tions, which  comes  to  us  as  hollow  as  the  language  of  ghosts 

How  can  it  be  otherwise  ?    These  objects  are  re-  ruU  of 
vived  simply  as  caprices  of  fashion,  which  would  miss 
its  purpose  were  it  to  bring  into  vogue  anything  of  permanent  in 
terest  and  value.    If  by  hazard  it  hits  on  the  beautiful,  it  hastens 
to  substitute  for  it  some  fresh,  ignoble  conceit,  lest  the  good  one 
should  take  firm  root  in  popular  favor.    In  old  times,  when 
brains  guided  hands  in  fashioning  objects  of  art,  the  mind  of 
the  artist  got  into  his  work,  and  no  two  things  were  ever  made 
21 


322 


MODERN  ORNAMENT. 


precisely  alike.    Our  age  holds  to  cheapening  and  multiplying 
articles,  rather  than  to  their  artistic  worth.    Hence  its  produc- 
tive energies  tend  to  substitute  mechanical  for  aesthetic  excel- 
lence, and  to  employ  machinery  in  place  of  fingers.    Everywhere  : 
we  meet  lifeless  repetitions  of  the  emasculated  ancient,  or  weari-  ; 
some  ones  of  modern  invention,  manufactured^  rather  than  made,  I 
as  ornament  once  was,  to  the  detriment  of  the  growth  of  original  \ 
artistic  talent  in  this  direction.    Most  modern  inventions'  betray 
poverty  of  thought,  and  lack  of  feeling ;  a  want  of  comprehen- 
sion of  iEsthetics  and  levity  of  choice,  giving  the  preference  to  the  ■ 
•meretricious  pretty  or  grotesque  ugly  over  the  actually  beauti-  i 
ful.    Especially  do  they  fail  in  coloring  and  graceful  form  in  I 
comparison  with  the  old,  though  they  excel  in  nice  finish  and  i 
accurate  workmanship  ;  in  fine,  those  mechanical  points  which  | 
have  been  gained  at  the  loss  of  superior  qualities ;  so  that  the 
standard  of  excellence  by  wliich  the  one  is  judged  differs  essen- 
tially from  that  of  the  other,  while  artistic  instinct  and  training 
have  deteriorated  accordingly  during  the  past  two  centuries. 

Reference  is  not  made  to  the  production  of  the  endless  vari-  ! 
ety  of  objects  which  may  be  called  the  gossip  of  art,  the  chief 
site  of  manufacture  of  which  is  Paris,  with  the  sole  intent  to  i 
tickle  the  eye  for  an  instant  and  then  give  way  to  a  fresher  nov-  1 
elty  equally  without  any  serious  reason  of  being,  but  to  those  \ 
that  make  a  distinctive  claim  to  art.    Nor  would  I  include  in  \ 
ornamentation  proper  the  representation  of  natural  objects,  like  j 
animals,  birds,  flowers,  and  insects  exactly  after  life.    As  illus-  ; 
tration,  they  have  an  appropriate  value.   Ornament  does  not  aim 
at  giving  realistic  truth  ;  for  it  rejoices  not  in  teaching  or  repre-  i 
senting  the  natural  fact,  but  in  giving  sensuous  or  suggestive  de-  \ 
light,  doing  for  the  eye  what  music  does  to  the  ear.    It  prefers  i 
to  soothe  or  seduce  the  imagination  and  senses  into  dreamy  en- 
joyment by  mystical  harmonies  of  form  and  color,  which  may 
hint  at  the  variety  of  the  seen  or  unseen  in  nature  without  liter- 
ally representing  anything  of  either  world.    Next  to  preaching  i 
a  moral,  the  worst  style  of  ornament  is  that  of  exact  imitation. 
The  best  ornament  has  no  meaning  or  common  sense  to  it.  Its 
interpretation  must  come  from  the  spectator,  and  be  different 
from  his  neighbor's.   Like  cloud-forms  and  hues,  each  change  of  j 
mood  or  position  should  put  a  new  aspect  on  its  shapes  and  col- 
ors.   This  is  its  supreme  test.    As  it  falls  short,  it  fails  of  its 
legitimate  purpose.  ! 

Judged  by  this  criterion,  those  races  which  we  esteem  *to  be  : 


INSTINCT  OF  BARBAROUS  RACES. 


323 


the  most  heathen  or  savage  have  the  finer  instincts,  and  the 
Anglo-Saxons  the  coarser.  A  Polynesian,  Hindoo,  or  native  of 
Japan  sucks  in  with  his  mother's  milk  a  sense  so  keen  and  clair- 
voyant in  respect  to  ornament,  that  he  appears  as  if  endowed 
with  a  special  faculty  for  it  of  an  almost  spiritual  quality  of  ap- 
prehension, while  the  American  and  Englishman  are  quite  desti- 
tute, not  only  of  this,  but  of  that  subtile  mental  appreciation  of 
its  true  purpose  which  equally  distinguish  them.  In  compensa- 
tion, we  have  gumption,  or  that  faculty  that  looks  more  to  get- 
ting force  and  comfort  out  of  the  universe  than  sensuous  beauty 
or  mystical  delight  in  it.  Yet  the  Asiatic's  life  is  more  sensual 
than  the  European's,  whose  imagination,  when  moved,  takes  a 
purer  view  both  of  art  and  matter. 

Whatever  feeling  for  beauty  the  coming  American  may  pos- 
sess, that  of  the  present  one  is  the  most  obtuse  or  wanting  of 
any  people,  except  the  English.  On  them,  however,  cultivation 
begins  to  tell,  while  among  Americans  the  mixture  of  bloods 
derived  from  the  more  jEsthetic  races  has  the  same  effect.  Still 
no  means  are  provided,  as  in  England,  to  educate  the  instinct ; 
nor  is  there  yet  any  practical  apprehension  of  the  value  of  art 
in  giving  more  life  to  its  manufactures,  and  enabling  them  to 
compete  in  elegance,  as  they  do  in  other  respects,  with  those  of 
foreign  nations.  Nothing  is  more  apparent  than  the  absence 
of  beauty  in  the  article  itself,  and  the  utter  unconsciousness  of 
it  in  the  artisan  and  the  public,  though  the  aim  be  to  make  it 
pleasurable  as  well  as  useful.  The  end  in  view  is  to  make  the 
thing  as  serviceable  as  possible  at  the  least  possible  cost. 
No  rule  could  more  effectually  extinguish  beauty,  and  make  the 
masses  forget  its  functions,  even  in  ornamental  work,  like  jewelry 
or  plate.  Whatever  of  good  is  seen  is  sure  to  have  come  from 
a  foreign  source.  Yet  the  American,  while  adhering  closely  to 
his  utilitarian  and  economical  principles,  has  unwittingly,  in  some 
objects  to  which  his  heart  equally  with  his  hand  has  been  de- 
voted, developed  a  degree  of  beauty  in  them  that  no  other  nation 
equals.  His  clipper-ships,  fire-engines,  locomotives,  and  some  of 
his  machinery  and  tools  combine  that  equilibrium  of  lines,  pro- 
portions, and  masses  which  are  among  the  fundamental  causes 
of  abstract  beauty.  Their  success  in  producing  broad,  general 
effects  out  of  a  few  simple  elements,  and  of  admirable  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  ends,  as  nature  evolves  beauty  out  of  the  com- 
mon and  practical,  covers  these  things  with  a  certain  atmosphere 
of  poetry,  and  is  an  indication  of  what  may  happen  to  the  rest 


324         EFFECT  OF  PURITANICAL  TRAINING. 


of  his  work  when  he  puts  into  it  an  equal  amount  of  heart  and 
knowledge. 

Out  of  a  similar  love  of  his  paddle  or  war-club,  the  savage 
makes  us  overlook  their  uses  in  their  fineness  of  lines,  and  deli- 
cate carving  of  meaningless,  varied  patterns,  for  which  he  has 
no  law,  but  an  instinct  derived  from  a  close  observation  of  na- 
ture. He  can  give  no  reason  for  them,  except  that  they  please 
him.  But  his  blind  feeling  is  a  truer  guide  in  ornament  than 
much  of  the  teaching  of  civilized  schools  of  design.  For  in- 
stance, the  colors  of  the  tapas  of  the  Polynesian  women  are 
often  so  judiciously  massed  and  balanced  as  to  produce  agree- 
able effects,  such  as  our  paper  or  print  manufacturers,  with  all 
their  science,  fail  to  rival. 

Give  a  New  England  girl  worsted  colors  and  a  needle,  and 
forthwith  she  works  out  a  moral  sampler  and  pictorial  alphabet 
or  multiplication- table,  hideous  in  design  and  unharmonious  in  col- 
oring. These  samplers  are  embryonic  in  her  blood,  as  is  her  nat- 
ural aptitude  for  ugliness  in  dress,  her  home  adornments,  and 
whatever  in  this  stage  of  her  sesthetic  development  represents 
her  passion  for  beauty.  She  shows  a  decided  preference  of 
angles  to  curves,  of  tidy  stiffness  and  whitewash  cleanliness  to 
sesthetic  disarray  and  opalescent  gleam  of  colors.  Many  genera- 
tions of  puritanical  training  have  wrought  in  her  this  abnegation 
of  one  of  the  most  fertile  sources  of  happiness  God  has  implant- 
ed in  tbe  human  mind;  and  it  will  take  several  generations  of 
opposite  training  to  recall  it.  Our  English  ancestors,  a  few  cen- 
turies ago,  had  as  keen  an  enjoyment  of  their  cathedrals,  cos- 
tumes, and  ceremonies  as  other  Europeans  had  of  theii's ;  but 
it  died  out  when  it  was  confused  with  moral  questions  and  at- 
tacked on  religious  grounds.  Its  resuscitation  will  be  quickened 
by  its  being  again  needed  in  the  higher  interest  of  civilization 
as  an  antidote  to  the  soul-wilting  materialism  which,  sooner  or 
later,  comes  to  a  life  that  fears  beauty  as  a  sin,  and  is  incapable 
of  discriminating  between  the  false  and  true  in  religion. 

There  is  as  wide  a  difference  of  artistic  qualities  between  the 
best  European  and  Asiatic  textile  fabrics  as  between  the  Yankee 
sampler  and  the  Hawaiian  tapa.  The  finest  French  calicoes  and 
shawls  are  gross  in  texture  and  garish  in  color  beside  the  best 
productions  of  Hindoo  fingers  and  toes,  for  both  are  made  to 
work.  By  countless  generations  of  training,  the  Hindoo  has 
developed  an  organization  so  acute  to  discern  and  apply  to  his 
textile  fabrics  the  subtlest  laws  of  design  and  coloring,  that  the 


ROOT  OF  FRENCH  FASHIONS. 


325 


European,  though  aided  by  scientific  machinery,  cannot  rival 
hinQ.  That  East  Indian  taste  in  ornamentation  and  dexterity  of 
fabrication  is  much  superior  to  the  best  European,  their  "  woven 
air,"  as  their  finest  muslin  is  poetically  termed,  amply  shows. 
No  costly  fabrics  of  French  looms  equal  this.  However  splen- 
did and  durable  they  may  be,  the  Asiatic  fabric  surpasses  them 
in  both ;  uniting  strength  of  substance  to  an  exquisite  delicacy 
of  coloring  and  mystic  design  to  a  degree  that  imparts  to  them 
an  almost  spiritual  element.  The  Hindoo's  taste  has  none  of  the 
fickleness  of  the  European.  Having  invented  something  which 
really  becomes  him,  he  adheres  to  it  for  centuries.  On  the  con- 
trary, no  sooner  have  we  fashioned  a  garment  into  some  sem- 
blance of  beautiful  adaptation  to  its  purpose  than  we  hasten  to 
bring  it  into  disrepute  to  benefit  those  who  cater  to  the  public 
ignorance  and  caprice.  Fashion,  which  might  be  made  a  friend 
of  taste,  in  the  main  is  its  enemy ;  for  it  never  looks  twice  at 
beauty  without  trying  to  destroy  it.  The  French  fix  the  fash- 
ions for  modern  civilization,  but  with  questionable  benefit. 
Though  having  some  taste  in  dress  and  the  minor  arts,  they  sub- 
ordinate it  to  the  desire  to  gain  money  in  the  briefest  time  at  the 
expense  of  all  other  peoples,  by  a  constant  succession  of  "  novel- 
ties," made  to  sell  and  be  consumed  quickly.  Their  principle, 
instead  of  repose,  is  to  beget  restlessness  of  device  and  rapid 
disaffection  ;  than  which  nothing  can  be  more  opposed  to  true 
aesthetic  training.  All  that  is  picturesque  and  graceful  in  in- 
digenous costumes  and  life,  is  disappearing  before  Parisian  toilets 
and  habits.  The  selfishness  of  trade  enslaves  the  taste  of 
France,  and  hinders  or  debases  that  of  the  rest  of  the  world. 
It  must  continue  to  be  so  as  long  as  the  public  of  any  country 
are  too  ignorant  or  apathetic  to  decide  for  themselves  what  best 
befits  them,  but  permit  the  expression  of  taste  to  be  the  monop- 
oly of  one  class,  whose  interest  is  to  banish  all  individual  judg- 
ment as  to  what  is  best,  regardless  of  a  neighbor's  style,  to 
reduce  all  consumers  to  a  monotonous  resemblance  or  imitation 
of  one  another,  and  never  allow  anything  of  permanent  value  to 
remain  long  enough  in  sight  to  familiarize  the  public  with  its 
merits.  Virtually,  the  European  law  of  fashion  is  the  negative 
of  that  of  beauty,  besides  being  inconstant  as  the  winds,  despotic, 
and  mercenary.  Both  governments  and  manufacturers  esteem 
that  national  prosperity  which  shows  the  greatest  balance-sheet 
of  consumption,  whether  the  article  is  needed  or  not,  or  is  mor- 
ally or  aesthetically  wholesome.    Such  trade  is  discreditable  to 


326 


FREE  INDIVIDUAL  TASTE. 


the  judgment ;  for  it  reacts  on  its  agents,  and  exposes  them  in 
their  turn  to  selfish  competitions,  and  the  disastrous  fluctuations 
occasioned  by  the  periodical  surfeits  and  changes  of  the  things 
themselves,  which  are  not  permitted  the  opportunity  even  to  at- 
tain perfection  after  their  kind.  If  it  be  objected  in  the  aesthetic 
point  of  view  that  a  variety  is  essential,  I  answer,  when  the  in- 
dividual is  trained  to  comprehend  the  laws  of  beauty,  and  given 
freedom  of  choice,  his  knowledge  and  free  agency  lead  him  to 
adopt  whatever  style  best  suits  him  and  his  position.  "We  thus 
secure  as  great  a  variety  in  details  as  there  are  shades  of  char- 
acter and  taste,  while  remaining  loyal  to  those  fundamental  prin- 
ciples which  put  the  whole  into  a  harmonious  unity  of  national 
life.  In  his  aesthetic  being,  the  Oriental  shows  more  common 
sense  than  the  European,  inasmuch  as  his  fashions  are  more  in- 
dependent of  the  caprices  of  the  manufacturer  and  the  bizarre 
desires  of  a  restless,  unartistic  public.  With  him  a  thing  of 
beauty  is  a  joy  quite  beyond  the  ban  of  fashion  to  cast  into  the 
mire,  or  be  supplanted  at  a  day's  notice  by  some  hideous  inven- 
tion of  a  crafty  tradesman.  Few  persons  consider  how  absurd 
is  the  common  deference  to  fashion-plates,  and  their  low  origin 
and  aim.  Just  as  people  begin  to  think  for  themselves  in  mat- 
ters of  taste,  as  in  ethics  or  politics,  will  they  decide  on  their 
Independent  Styles  of  decoration  for  their  person  and  homes, 

taste.  and  make  them  representative  of  their  lives  and  means. 

Taste  will  then  have  an  individualistic  and  educational  value, 
instead  of  being  the  livery  of  a  traffic,  displayed  for  no  better 
reason  than  leads  one  sheep  to  follow  another  in  a  heedless 
scamper.  It  will  also  stamp  the  nation's  aesthetic  character  on 
the  whole  in  the  same  way  that  a  few  great  minds  in  science  or 
literature  represent  its  intellectual  standard  to  others.  Each 
race  should  be  stimulated  to  develop  its  strength  and  beauty  in 
those  directions  to  which  nature  and  circumstances  most  obvi- 
ously incline  it.  The  current  slavishness  to  France  is  most 
foolish  in  itself,  and  pernicious  in  its  effects  to  the  manhood  of 
that  nation,  as  well  as  to  those  that  submit  to  its  dictations. 
Considering  only  her  gain  in  money,  it  is  natural  that  she  makes 
prodigious  efforts  to  keep  her  supremacy.  But  her  success  is 
only  that  of  a  great  bazaar  and  caterer  of  amusements.  As  one 
after  another  of  the  false  despotisms  over  mind  or  body  that 
afflict  mankind,  disappear,  real  progress  is  made.  When  all  na- 
tions become  equally  free,  a  harmonious  variety  of  action  and 
intelligence  will  make  up  that  great  human  unity  which  is  des- 
tined to  give  "  peace  and  good  will  to  men." 


INFLUENCE  OF  MUSEUMS. 


327 


We  must  not  confound  the  vulgar  aspect  of  fashions  with  those 
great  changes  which  corae  over  art  at  stated  intervals  of  time, 
and  are  as  fixed  and  systematic  in  operation  as  organic  matter 
itself.  Each  creates  definite  types  in  accordance  with  underly- 
ing ideas.  Evolved  from  permanent  principles,  though  their 
forms  are  transitory,  their  inherent  loveliness  endures,  and  is 
cherished  as  a  precious  legacy  of  a  lost  art,  even  if  the  feeling 
that  produced  them  has  passed  as  completely  out  of  our  reach  as 
the  spent  fragrance  of  a  flower. 

Consider  the  moral  aspect  of  a  museum  as  a  repos-  j^^^^i 
itory  of  the  embodied  ideas  of  a  people  !    We  wag  fluence  of  a 

...  museum. 

our  heads  as  we  go  by  grave-yard  epitaphs,  knowing 
them  to  be  as  great  liars  as  the  old  Cretans.  If  one  could  always 
see  the  true  epitaph  in  letters  of  fire  shining  within  the  outward 
one,  he  would  be  aghast  at  the  difference.  A  museum  confesses 
that  of  the  dead  which  their  epitaphs  hide.  No  need  of  clairvoy- 
ance here  to  read  the  truth  ;  each  fact  discloses  its  origin  and  pur- 
pose, and  a  little  education  reveals  the  entire  mystery.  History 
thus  becomes  a  tangible  revelation,  indiscreet  at  times  as  disturb- 
ing our  prejudices,  but  a  great  dispeller  of  misconceptions  and 
leveller  of  vanities.  In  this  way  it  does  its  best  service.  To  con- 
serve beauty  for  our  admiration  and  enjoyment  is  praiseworthy  ; 
but  to  make  it  show  up  our  shortcomings,  to  give  the  means  of 
measuring  ourselves  with  others  ;  to  take  the  boasting  out  of  peo- 
ple, by  proving  that  their  best,  though  differing  from  another's 
best,  is  no  better,  perhaps  not  its  equal  ;  to  supplant  pride  by 
charity,  ignorance  by  information,  self-exultation  by  generous 
competition  ;  this  is  the  great  service  of  a  museum. 

In  this  connection  allusion  must  be  made  to  a  few  of  the 
phases  of  ornamental  and  decorative  art,  which  have  established 
for  themselves  a  claim  to  be  preserved  for  universal  edification, 
but  whose  special  inspirations  having  disappeared  with  their 
sources  of  being,  their  outward  forms  will  never  reappear  in  his- 
tory as  the  visible  talk  and  emotion  of  one  of  its  brilliant  periods, 
whatever  effort  may  be  made  to  imitate  them  as  curiosities.  In 
a  large  sense,  taste  is  the  image  of  the  current  morality  of  an 
epoch  or  individual,  which  books  inadequately  render.  Writing 
therefore  fails  to  give  that  impression  of  them  which  can  come 
only  from  the  objects  themselves.  There  being  no  collections  in 
America  to  refer  to  in  support  of  my  words,  I  shall  make  them 
as  few  as  can  be,  in  order  not  to  seem  to  exaggerate  in  fact  or 
theory. 


328 


PAGAN  ORNAMENT. 


The  best  period  of  ornament  is  the  most  remote  one  of  Euro- 
pean civilization  ;  a  fact  which  should  make  us  somewhat  less 
boastful  of  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ.  It  does  not  de- 
tract from  our  advantages  to  admit  that  other  times  and  peoples 
have  not  been  left  without  profit  and  joy  in  their  lives,  though 
differing  widely  from  ours. 

Classical  Aucicnt  Greccc  and  Etruria  afford  the  purest  and 

ornamfnta-  ^"^^^  elegant  forms  of  ornamental  art,  of  consummate 
tion.  skill  of  workmanship  and  exquisite  finish  in  bronze, 

ceramic  ware,  gems,  jewelry,  glass,  in  fine  every  durable  mate- 
rial. The  perfection  attained  in  the  superior  forms  of  art  was 
heightened,  if  possible,  in  its  transmission  to  the  lesser.  There 
exist  intaglii,  vases,  medals,  and  small  bronzes,  replete  with  the 
vital  beauty  of  the  contemporary  sculpture ;  and  yet  on  so  small 
a  scale  is  the  design  of  some  that  the  unassisted  eye  fails  to  take 
in  all  their  truth  and  delicacy.  The  Romans  initiated  this  fine 
work  with  spirit  and  skill,  but  with  inferior  manual  precision  as 
well  as  idealization.  Italy  retains  her  fashion  of  terra-cotta 
mouldings  and  reliefs,  but  coarse  in  execution  and  commonplace 
in  invention  in  comparison  with  those  which  decorated  the 
houses  of  their  Etruscan  ancestry.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
varied,  light,  and  graceful  vases  and  paterce,  whose  phantom  fig- 
ures in  mythological  guise  and  broad,  harmonious  tints,  make 
them  one  of  the  most  intellectually  suggestive  of  all  known 
forms  of  ornament.  Indeed,  the  Grecian  and  Etruscan  instinct 
for  fine  forms  and  lines  is  as  keen  as  that  of  Persians  and  East 
Indians  for  massing,  balancing,  and  gradation  of  colors,  with 
this  notable  difference,  that  whereas  the  latter  retain  some  of 
their  ancient  skill,  the  former  have  lost  theirs  by  the  attrition  of 
new  ideas  and  fashions. 

Complete  isolation  is  the  only  safeguard  in  the  course  of  time 
of  any  distinctive  national  trait  or  skill.  In  the  highest  Apen- 
nines, at  St.  Angelo  in  Vado,  cut  off  from  intercourse  with  the 
world,  there  still  is  made  jewelry  after  the  antique  Etruscan 
style,  though  of  ruder  workmanship  than  the  beautiful  specimens 
now  to  be  seen  in  the  Gregorian,  British,  and  Louvre  museums, 
and  Castellani's  private  collection  at  Rome. 

The  Orient  furnishes  the  most  exquisite  ornamentation,  in 
which  color  is  the  marked  feature.  In  bronzes  of  their  peculiar 
type,  the  Japanese  and  Chinese  excel  in  varied  design,  move- 
ment, and  quality  of  material.  I  speak  only  of  their  best  artis- 
tic work  of  former  periods  ;  for,  like  the  Occidentals,  tiiey  now 


ORIENTAL  PORCELAINS. 


329 


make  much  cheap  ornament  merely  to  sell,  and  since  Europe 
has  come  into  competition  with  them  in  the  Eastern  markets, 
and  increased  the  demand  for  their  specialities,  their  skill  and 
taste  have  greatly  degenerated.  Idealism  with  them  is  either 
transcendental  nonsense,  burlesque  horror,  or  superlative  ugli- 
ness. Apparently  they  aim  at  inventing  what  the  Greeks 
avoided  as  a  sin.  Indeed,  the  imaginations  of  the  European 
and  Asiatic  are  as  wide  apart  as  possible  in  their  creative  and 
inventive  art.  The  aim  and  feeling  of  the  latter  are  too  alien 
to  our  thought  for  much  profit  or  enjoyment  therefrom ;  but  we 
can  get  intense  delight  from  their  porcelains,  enamels,  and  lac- 
quer work,  in  which  form  is  secondary  and  color  the  supreme 
object.  The  finest  specimens  of  these  articles  are  shut  up  in  the 
private  collections  of  Europe,  and  only  to  be  seen  by  the  public 
on  some  such  rare  occasion  as  the  Exposition  at  Paris  of  1865. 
No  one  who  has  not  seen  what  porcelain  is  in  the  oriental 
hands  of  the  ancient  Chinese  artisan,  can  form  any  porcelains. 
idea  of  its  exquisite  beauty  and  lightness.  Some  styles  seem  as 
if  they  were  made  of  an  amalgam  of  precious  stones  of  every 
hue  by  a  process  known  only  to  the  gods,  and  which  as  far  sur- 
pass, in  varied  magnificence  of  coloring  and  etherealness  of 
make,  the  dainty  prettiness  and  misplaced  art  of  Sevres  and 
Dresden  as  their  porcelain  is  finer  than  ordinary  crockery. 

If  the  best  Oriental  porcelain  be  characterized  by  delicacy 
and  melody,  so  to  speak,  of  tints,  its  cloissonnee  enamels  are 
not  less  so  by  a  brilliancy  and  harmony  which  are  actually  ob- 
tained from  rich  stones  in  the  shape  of  an  adamantine  paste. 
They  constitute  a  vivid  illustration,  as  to  design  and  coloring, 
of  the  fundamental  truth  of  ornament  pure,  namely,  that  it  should 
not  directly  imitate  nature  or  attempt  to  compete  with  its  forms, 
but  should  base  itself  on  a  close  observation  of  its  methods  and 
forces.  We  thus  get  a  new  and  pleasurable  sensation  out  of  a 
novel  combination  of  its  elements,  without  any  suggestion  of  in- 
feriority to  nature.  Yet,  in  direct  reproduction  of  its  forms,  the 
Japanese  bronzists,  lacquerists,  and  draughtsmen  render  animal 
and  vegetable  life  with  such  vital  correctness  of  design  and 
action  that  the  best  drawn  quadrupeds,  birds,  and  vegetation  of 
European  artists  appear  heavy  and  spiritless  beside  them.  They 
have  a  conscience  for  ideal  color  as  the  Greeks  had  for  ideal 
form,  and  this  is  a  sure  guide  in  their  several  purposes  of  orna- 
mentation. Hence  everything  is  well  done  in  relation  to  the 
desired  effect.    The  grammar  of  ornament  being  at  their  fingers' 


330 


JAPANESE  ENAMELS. 


ends  we  are  seldom  troubled  with  those  violations  of  harraony, 
unity,  fitness,  and  truth  of  design;  and  that  confusion  of  purpose, 
which  are  common  to  European  work.  I  have  before  me  in 
lacquer-relief  on  ivory  a  hawk  in  silver  perched  on  a  golden  tree, 
which,  thus  mentioned,  seems  extremely  artificial  and  conven- 
tional. But  so  delicately  are  the  metallic  tints  gradated,  and  so 
perfectly  are  the  forms  rendered,  that  while  the  effect  of  the 
whole  as  ornament  is  most  rich,  there  is  also  more  of  the  actual 
life  of  bird,  tree,  trunk,  and  leaf  suggested  than  one  finds  in  our 
best  plates  of  natural  history.  In  painting,  sculpture,  and  architect- 
ure proper,  neither  the  Japanese  nor  Chinese  compete  with  the 
European,  or  have  anything  worthy  of  note  as  fine  art.  But 
in  the  minor  sphere  of  decorative  art,  they  excel  in  the  variety 
and  agreeableness  of  design  and  splendor  of  coloring. 
Japanese  '^^^  finest  Japanese  enamels  have  the  harmonious 

enamels.  delicacy  and  intricacy  of  pattern  of  Venetian  lace. 
Were  it  not  for  the  solidity  of  their  materials,  one  might  fear 
they  would  melt  away  like  a  dissolving  view.  Chinese  enamels 
are  more  magnificent  in  general  effects  ;  colors  are  massed  more 
for  brilliant  contrasts,  are  broader  and  more  vehement  in  tone, 
more  architectural  m  expression,  with  infinite  inventive  detail 
combined  into  an  original  structural  whole ;  the  entire  mass, 
like  those  immense  globes  and  vases  which  were  taken  from  the 
summer  palace  at  Pekin  when  it  was  sacked  by  the  French  and 
English,  forming  a  symphony  in  color,  or  firmaments  in  min- 
iature lined  with  jasper,  lapis-lazuli,  amethyst,  ruby,  sapphire, 
and  all  manner  of  precious  stones  in  a  sea  of  gold. 

Scarcely  less  beautiful,  though  of  the  frailest  material,  are  the 
Japanese  straw-mosaics  in  the  form  of  boxes,  which  have  the 
quiet,  rich  sheen  of  the  finest  birds  of  the  tropics,  the  patterns 
being  arranged  in  geometrical  lines,  but  preserving  a  resplen- 
dent harmony  of  colors  of  the  liveliest  contrasting  lines.  We 
call  Oriental  taste  bizarre,  but  their  fancy  in  design  and  color 
is  based  on  a  closer  insight  into  nature  than  Europeans  display 
in  their  decorative  art.  It  seems  equally  founded  in  realism 
and  mysticism,  or  compounded  of  them ;  for  while  nothing  can 
be  more  accurate  than  their  observation  and  comprehension  of 
the  forms  and  instincts  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  they  baptize 
facts  in  the  waters  of  an  imagination  that  has  no  counterpart 
in  the  European  mind  for  versatility  of  invention  and  strange- 
ness of  types,  which,  although  grotesquely  monstrous  and  impos- 
sible, look  natural  in  functions  and  conformation.    These  super- 


SARACENIC  ORNAMENT. 


331 


nal  creations  of  the  diabolism  of  art  are  much  less  common  in 
Europe.  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  indeed,  succeeded  in  making  a  mon- 
ster of  new  and  hideous  mien  ;  but  almost  every  other  artist  who 
has  attempted  it,  has  only  invented  impotent  caricatures  of  mys- 
tic forces,  so  palpably  impossible  in  themselves  as  not  to  frighten 
a  baby,  or  seem  to  be  other  than  the  grotesque  imagery  of  a 
fancy  untutored  in  the  facts  of  nature.  But  the  Japanese  is  so 
shrewd  an  observer  of  them  that  he  does  not  find  it  difficult 
to  construct  new  forms,  invest  them  with  vitality,  infuse  into 
them  the  mysticism  of  his  demon-loving  imagination,  and  force 
them  to  do  its  bidding.  To  him  they  are  as  substantial  beings 
as  are,  or  were  Satan,  Charon,  or  the  great  dragon  of  the 
Apocalypse  to  the  Europeans ;  and  being  thus  real,  he  makes  us 
feel  their  presence  in  whatever  material  their  ugliness  is  fash- 
ioned into,  just  as  we  are  vitally  conscious  of  the  joy  in  beauty 
of  the  best  Greek,  and  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  in  the  best  medi- 
aeval art.  Unfortunately  modern  commerce  has  almost  extin- 
guished the  art  of  the  Orient  by  reducing  it  to  the  prosaic  level 
of  cheap  manufacture. 

Moresque  or  Saracenic  ornamentation  is  the  aes-  j^foresque 
thetic  reaction  of  an  imaginative  race  against  the  relig-  ornament. 
ious  proscription  of  their  faith  to  paint  or  carve  forms  of  animal 
and  human  life.  It  culminated  in  the  Alhambra,  which  is  the 
most  complete  example  of  the  intellectual  as  opposed  to  sensu- 
ous or  sensual  spirit  in  architectural  decoration.  Although  it 
gives  a  certain  satisfaction  to  the  eye  and  mind,  it  is  a  limited 
one,  partaking  more  of  the  feeling  one  experiences  in  solving  a 
difficult  problem  and  finding  it  beautiful  in  theory,  than  of  that 
enjoyment  which  comes  from  less  restricted  scopes  of  art. 
There  is  no  completed  pleasure  in  its  complex  involutions ;  in- 
stead, a  sense  of  bewilderment,  as  of  a  jDuzzle  which  provokes 
to  a  solution  without  a  suggestion  of  other  repayment  than  in 
unravelling  the  mysteries  of  graceful  lines  and  meandering 
designs  void  of  meaning  and  shape.  It  is  mathematical  science 
playing  art  rather  than  art  absolute,  with  whatever  fascination 
of  color  it  chooses  to  add.  Instead  of  stimulating  the  imagina- 
tion to  seek  satisfaction  in  the  external  world,  it  tends  to  turn 
it  back  on  itself  for  a  suggestion  of  the  unseen,  and  in  this 
respect  is  admirably  adapted  to  keep  pure  that  abstract  idea  of 
God  which  is  the  great  principle  of  Mohammedanism. 

The  Arab  put  admonitory  texts  into  his  ornamentation.  The 
Greek  fashioned  heroism,  human  and  divine,  into  color  and  shape. 


332  LUCCA  BELLA  ROBBIA  WARE. 


Whatever  was  an  example  or  benefit  to  men,  stimulated  his  faith, 
or  fed  his  love  of  beauty,  he  found  everywhere  in  sight  —  on 
temple,  furniture,  utensil,  and  jewelry,  pictorial  and  carved 
lessons  and  tales  to  instruct  and  amuse  him.  Even  the  tiles, 
spouts,  cornices,  friezes,  and  floors  of  his  dwellings  had  a  higher 
purpose  than  material  use.  They  were  alive  with  the  stories 
of  his  beautiful  mythology,  encouraging  his  waking  hours  or 
inspiring  his  dreams  with  examples  of  good  fighting  evil,  and 
happiness  banishing  pain. 

Mediaevalists  and  Byzantines  filled  their  ornamentation  with 
virtues  conquering  demons,  face  of  angel,  cherub,  seraph,  saint, 
and  hero ;  the  saving  sacrifice  of  self  instead  of  the  delight  in 
it  of  the  ancient  religions  ;  emaciation  and  untidiness  of  body 
in  place  of  the  whiteness  and  roundness  of  pagan  limbs ;  but 
always  in  sight,  their  doctrine  of  salvation. 

The  Renaissance  perverted  the  virtue  and  beauty  of  both 
periods  into  infidelity  and  sensuality  of  symbolism,  losing  even 
sensuously  whatever  was  best  in  them.  That  which  befell  its 
architecture,  equally  affected  its  ornament.  Not  that  it  was 
wholly  wrong  and  unlovely  when  free  of  the  dictation  of 
princes  who  guided  its  destinies  ;  for  some  of  its  works,  whether 
of  classical  or  mediaeval  motive,  are  almost  as  satisfying  as  their 
prototypes. 

Lucca  ddla  Lucca  della  Robbia  invented  his  glaze  before  the 
Robbiaware.  Renaissance  had  corrupted  art.  His  object  was,  by 
giving  a  vitreous  surface  to  the  clay  model,  to  save  the  expense 
of  cutting  it  in  marble  or  casting  it  in  bronze.  This  process  was 
the  most  successful  ever  invented  to  cheapen  sculpture,  and 
make  it  in  some  respects  even  more  durable,  without  an  obvious 
loss  of  its  finer  properties.  In  the  hands  of  its  inventor,  it  was 
of  inestimable  value  to  fine  art,  as  it  multiplied  its  objects  at 
small  cost,  and  enabled  them  to  resist  the  weather  in  localities 
which  would  have  proved  detrimental  to  other  material,  preserv- 
ing for  an  indefinite  period  that  clearness  of  surface  and  lus- 
trous sharpness  of  outline  which  enables  the  spectator  to  detect 
subtle  qualities  of  expression  and  truth  of  modelling  at  a  dis- 
tant point  of  view.  Thus  it  happens  so  often  in  remote  or  dirty 
by-ways  of  Italy,  like  St.  Fiore  in  the  Tuscan  Maremma,  or  the 
present  crowded  and  filthy  market-place  of  Florence,  in  the 
exterior  of  dilapidated  buildings  or  inside  poverty-stricken 
churches,  we  meet  with  compositions  of  this  master  that  are 
literally  visions  of  angelic  hosts  to  lift  the  thouglits  out  of  the 


LIMOGES  ENAMELS. 


333 


mire  of  life  heavenwards.  Costly  marbles  would  never  have 
been  placed  in  such  localities  or  remained  intact,  had  they  been. 
But  after  nearly  or  quite  four  centuries  of  the  vicissitudes  of 
climate  and  history,  they  often  exist  to-day  as  perfect  of  surface 
and  as  replete  with  spiritual  Hfe  as  when  Lucca  threw  his  pious 
soul  into  them,  and  fixed  it  there.  In  his  works  there  is  no 
touch  of  the  levity  or  sensuality  of  the  Renaissance.  The  purity 
of  their  great  "  white  light,"  and  the  thoroughness  of  the  charac- 
terization he  bestows  upon  saints,  angels,  prophets,  martyrs,  the 
Virgin,  Saviour,  and  God  himself — the  plastic  clay  retaining 
those  subtle  touches  which  are  somewhat  lost  in  their  transfer 
to  less  ductile  material  —  all  this  makes  them  reflect  in  a  high 
degree  the  ineffable  language  of  religion. 

As  ornament  apart  from  sculpture  proper,  his  invention  ad- 
mitted of  great  variety  and  expansion  of  design,  beside  the  free 
use  of  indestructible  color ;  but  the  secret  died  with  his  family. 
Since  his  time  repeated  but  fruitless  attempts  in  various  coun- 
tries have  been  made  to  revive  the  process.  The  results  thus 
far  make  us  regret  all  the  more  our  great  loss  in  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  receipt  for  the  glaze,  which  tradition  says  is  con- 
cealed in  the  head  of  one  of  Lucca's  numerous  statues. 

Somewhat  later,  Palissy  discovered  a  method  of 
glazing  terra-cotta  and  clay  analogous  to  the  Rob-  ^^^^^^y- 
bian  ;  but  it  was  thin  and  brittle,  and  more  suited  for  in-door 
decoration  and  cabinet  specimens  than  adapted  to  the  uses  of  the 
Italian  process.  Its  artistic  aim  was  simply  decorative,  but  the 
lively  invention  and  delicate  taste  of  Palissy,  especially  as  dis- 
played in  the  borders  of  his  dishes  and  their  exquisite  coloring, 
place  its  best  compositions  almost  in  the  domain  of  fine  arts. 
The  well-known  bizarre  Reptile  plates,  being  moulded  directly 
from  nature,  are  an  exception  to  this  remark,  and  are  now  made 
in  France  almost  equally  as  good  as  his. 

Limoges  enamels  in  their  earlier  stage  were  much 
like  the  Byzantine  in  motives  and  workmanship,  de- 
voted  to  religious  subjects,  and  of  crude  design,  though  brilliant 
in  color.  After  the  Renaissance  they  became  more  pagan  in 
sentiment  and  meretricious  in  coloring,  but  with  superior  draw- 
ing and  composition.  In  garish  brillancy  nothing  excels  them. 
There  are  some  in  gray  chiaroscuro  of  almost  classical  elegance. 
The  manufacture  is  now  revived  at  Paris,  but  fails,  less  in  ac- 
curacy of  design  than  in  the  beauty  of  composition  and  intense 
glow  of  color,  to  rival  the  old. 


334 


ITALIAN  MAJOLICA. 


Every  recent  attempt  to  revive  and  equal  obsolete  styles  of 
ornamentation  has  been  a  comparative  failure.  Though  to  the 
experienced  eye  the  ceramic  ware  of  Naples,  made  in  imitation 
of  the  ancient  Grecian  and  Etruscan,  is  a  success,  it  really  is 
deficient  in  those  points  which  constitute  the  true  excellence  of 
their  originals,  even  to  the  manual  finish  and  fineness  of  the  ma- 
Majoiica  terials.  Ginori's  revival  of  Italian  majolica  at  Flor- 
ence, beautiful  as  it  undoubtedly  is,  falls  short  of  its 
patterns  made  at  Gubbio,  Urbino,  Pesaro,  and  Faenza  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  in  the  essentials  of  a  strong, 
clear  enamel,  depth,  fusion,  and  gradation  of  tints  ;  in  fine  of 
those  special  mechanical  qualities  which  are  the  heir-looms  of  the 
families  that  perfect  them,  and  perish  with  their  blood.  It  seems 
easier  to  invent  the  new  than  to  repeat  the  old,  which  has  served 
out  its  time.  Better  so !  Each  phase  of  civilization  has  its 
own  defined  feelings  and  purpose,  which  are  best  expressed  in  an 
art  of  its  own  creation.  Worn-out  faiths,  customs,  or  ideas  de- 
generate into  conventionalisms  which  no  patronage  can  awaken 
into  real  life  again.  Apparently  it  is  easy  for  science  to  redis- 
cover old  methods,  and  by  rule  renew  old  results  ;  but  she  does 
not  succeed  in  her  attempts.  Analysis  can  recall  a  chemical  re- 
ceipt; but  the  skill  which  gave  it  value,  comes  not  back  with  it. 
In  all  the  fine  ornament  of  the  past  there  is  a  subtle  something, 
an  imponderable  product  of  brains  and  fingers,  which  will  not 
serve  new  masters.  An  imitation  may  appear  splendid,  and,  at 
a  superficial  glance,  even  superior  to  its  model ;  but  a  close  ex- 
amination of  both  soon  show^s  its  inferiority.  This  is  especially 
true  of  what  is  called  the  "  rejiet  metalUque'^  or  iridescent  ma- 
jolica, of  Gubbio,  the  secret  of  which  was  confined  to  Maestro 
Giorgio  Andreoli  and  his  son,  though  there  were  other  and  less 
fine  applications  of  the  process  to  merely  decorative  dishes  and 
vases,  introduced  into  Italy  before  his  time  by  the  Sicilian  Arabs. 

The  dukes  of  Urbino  were  the  principal  patrons  of  these 
fine  qualities  of  majolica,  which  were  made  for  royal  gifts,  and 
whose  designs  were  the  work  of  the  most  distinguished  artists. 
Here  I  ought  to  remark,  as  one  reason  of  the  artistic  superiority 
of  all  old  decoration  over  all  modern,  that  the  artist  and  work- 
man was  either  the  same  person,  or  there  w^as  no  such  distinc- 
tion between  them  as  now  obtains.  They  worked  in  conmion 
for  a  common  end,  each  comprehending  the  other's  part.  Majo- 
lica ware  was  strong  enough  to  be  used,  as  it  was  made  of  a 
coarse,  tough  earth,  thickly  glazed ;  but  the  object  of  the  finer 


MAESTRO  GIORGIO  IRIDESCENT  WARE. 


335 


sort  was  merely  a  novel  and  effective  kind  of  wall  or  sideboard 
decoration,  or  even  out-door  ornament.  Culture  gave  this  ordi- 
nary class  its  refinement,  and  made  it  a  companion  of  princes. 
With  Sevres  porcelain  it  is  its  pretty  dress  alone  that  pleases. 
The  creative  minds  of  the  artist  and  scientist  were  forever  fixed 
in  glowing  colors  by  means  of  an  adamantine  enamel  on  the 
majolica  plate,  which  nothing  could  obliterate,  and  only  rude 
strength  destroy. 

Majolica  of  the  Maestro  Giorgio  iridescent  surface  and  Xanto 
or  Fontana  compositions  is  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  kinds  of 
ornament  ever  invented,  because  of  its  broad  artistic  motives  and 
treatment,  and  its  wonderful  use  of  some  of  the  most  lovely 
effects  of  nature  to  heighten  its  charms.  The  difficulties  attend- 
ing its  make  were  so  many  that  it  is  rare  to  find  a  specimen  in 
which  the  glaze  is  uniformly  transparent  and  lustrous,  and  the 
design  equally  correct  throughout.  That  dazzling  white  glaze 
seen  in  the  perfect  specimens  was  obtained  from  a  varnish  made 
from  tin,  into  which  the  pottery  was  plunged  when  half  baked. 
Before  it  had  time  to  dry,  the  composition  must  be  drawn  and 
painted,  a  process  all  the  more  difficult  because  the  varnish  tend- 
ed to  absorb  the  color.  Those  prismatic  lustres  which  make  the 
best  plates  vie  with  the  sheen  of  an  Tmpeyan  pheasant,  or  the 
glitter  of  an  haliotis  shell,  which  glisten  and  scintillate  like  gems 
or  winter's  stars,  or  give  reflections  of  ruby  and  opalescent  light 
to  a  half-darkened  room  that  keeps  within  its  walls  a  warm  glow 
as  of  a  perpetual  sunset,  are  mystic  preparations  of  lead,  copper, 
silver,  and  gold,  that  no  modern  experiments  have  been  able  to 
repeat. 

Glass  presents  a  striking  contrast  between  its  old 
and  new  forms  as  ornament.  In  richness  and  variety 
of  colors,  antique  glass  exceeds  the  modern ;  but  we  see  it  sel- 
dom in  perfect  condition.  The  ancients  acquired  a  skill  in 
working  it  analogous  to  that  shown  on  gems.  Indeed,  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  it  was  worked  was  purely  artistic,  except  when 
made  for  the  most  ordinary  purposes  of  trade.  Our  cut,  en- 
graved, and  colored  glass  excels  in  transparency,  polish,  outline, 
and  lucidity  of  design,  —  mere  mechanical  excellences  ;  and  we 
meet,  as  in  all  other  ornament,  a  wearisome  repetition  of  the 
same  patterns  and  styles,  each  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  other, 
to  satisfy  the  modern  desire  to  have  sets  of  objects.  Now  the 
ancient  artisan,  not  being  the  slave  of  machinery,  and  confined 
to  one  species  of  labor  or  portion  of  the  article,  learned  all  that 


336       GEMS,  BRONZES,  ARMOR,  AND  LEATHER. 


.1 


was  requisite  to  make  it  as  a  whole,  using  his  own  taste  and  dis-  ! 
cretion  in  fashioning  everything  committed  to  his  charge.  Con- 
sequently, his  was  emphatically  work  of  the  mind  ;  and  he  could 
not  if  he  would,  and  would  not  if  he  could,  repeat  it  without  j 
Dumber,  as  our  workmen,  trained  to  the  monotony  of  machine-  ! 
labor,  and  allowed  no  exercise  of  their  own  inventive  faculties,  ! 
are  compelled  to.    Examine  the  fantastic  glass  of  the  Venetian  i 
Republic.    So  flexible,  light,  varied,  and  gleesome  are  its  tinted 
or  lucid  forms  that  it  seems  like  the  crystallized  laughter  of  the 
immortals,  —  frozen  breath  which  the  next  warm  breath  will 
dissolve  into  new  shapes  of  air-like  matter.  ! 

In  this  connection  I  might  speak  of  gems,  ivories,  bronzes,  ' 
and  precious  metals,  in  all  of  which  the  ancients  excelled  the 
moderns,  not  excepting  Cellini  and  his  school.    On  account  of 
its  perishable  nature,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  what  amount  ! 
of  beauty  the  Greeks  imparted  to  iron ;  but  their  superiority  in  ■ 
bronze  attests  an  equal  capacity  for  working  the  more  common  ■ 
metal.    The  mediaeval  and  Renaissant  artisans  wrought  it  into 
wondrously  beautiful  complex  and  grotesque  forms  for  keys  and  ' 
other  domestic  objects,  besides  the  splendid  inlaid  and  repousse 
armor  which  was  a  speciality  of  the  age  of  chivalry,  giving  to 
iron  almost  as  much  mystic  grace  and  significance  as  to  glass.  ■ 
Even  leather  was  stamped  with  loveliness.    But  it  is  unneces-  , 
sary  to  enumerate  more  articles  in  proof  of  the  general  desire 
to  put  the  homely  and  ugly  out  of  sight,  and  to  clothe  utility  in 
aesthetic  costume,  —  a  desire  which  succeeded  in  its  aim  because 
all  classes  comprehended  and  enjoyed  artistic  beauty.    Public  j 
taste  was  trained  from  the  cradle  in  this  direction.    It  liked  to  | 
see  the  distinctions  of  rank  and  office,  religious  rites,  and  even 
trades  marked  by  richness  and  variety  of  costumes  and  ceremo-  | 
nies.    There  was  a  constant  rivalry  in  pomp  and  magnificence 
as  attributes  of  station  and  wealth,  —  a  rivalry,  not  as  now  of 
sheer  luxury  of  life,  but  of  its  pleasures,  strength,  and  beliefs  in 
the  highest  symbolisms  of  art,  at  a  period  when  its  objects  were 
so  abundant  and  excellent  that  every  gamin  of  the  street  was 
a  sounder  critic,  and  had  more  joy  in  them,  than  now  has  the 
average  citizen  of  any  people.  ! 

Were  it  possible,  I  would  burn  it  into  the  heart  of  every  one  \ 
whose  instincts  are  not  wholly  sordid  or  animal  that  taste  alone  j 
gives  the  capacity  to  enjoy  art,  and  that  that  comes  only  by  sys-  | 
tematic  training.  Life  is  hard  and  angular,  unless  it  be  rounded  ; 
and  refined  by  aesthetic  education.  What  benefit  is  it  to  a  blind 


ENGLISH  SCHOOLS  OF  DESIGN. 


337 


man  to  take  him  to  the  Bay  of  Naples,  or  place  him  before  the  Vic- 
toria Regia  in  blossom  ?  A  people  who  know  not  beauty,  make 
a  mock  of  those  who  would  bestow  it  on  them,  if  they  do  not 
turn  upon  and  rend  them  for  their  pains.  The  more  deformed 
and  senseless  an  object  is,  if  it  only  be  called  ornamental,  the 
more  it  is  popular,  and  the  less  anything  truly  beautiful  is  es- 
teemed. In  America,  the  present  is  an  epoch  of  monstrous 
plaster  figures,  daubed  with  crazy  paint ;  of  mammoth  cast-iron 
wash-basins,  called  fountains  ;  of  cast-iron  architecture  and  clum- 
sy gate-ways  to  public  parks ;  of  shoddy  portrait-statues  and 
inane  ideal  ones;  of  ornaments,  pictures,  and  sculpture  made  to 
gull  and  sell ;  of  rude  though  not  unkindly  manners  and  speech  ; 
lakes  of  tobacco-spit,  and  heels  higher  than  heads  where  ladies 
pass ;  of  polluting  the  balmiest  airs  of  heaven  with  fumes  of 
filthy  pipes ;  and  of  the  thousand  and  one  sins  of  omission  and 
commission  by  the  selfish  and  thoughtless,  that  make  life  tenfold 
less  enjoyable  than  it  needs  be.  Ornament  our  lives  and  char- 
acter consistently,  and  we  refine  and  elevate  our  neighbor  as  well 
as  ourselves.  There  must,  however,  be  a  general  diffusion  of 
correct  gesthetic  principles  before  the  public  mind  is  able  to  dis- 
criminate between  right  and  wrong  in  art.  Wedgewood  a  cen- 
tury ago  invented  new  and  lovely  forms  of  pottery ;  but,  the 
English  not  then  comprehending  their  merits,  they  failed  of 
commercial  success.  But  what  was  then  despised,  has  now  be- 
come popular,  owing  to  diffused  culture  and  a  practical  acquaint- 
ance with  fine  art  by  means  of  schools  of  design  and  institutions 
like  the  Kensington  and  British  museums.  Within  one  gener- 
ation these  have  raised  the  knowledge  and  skill  of  the  artisans 
of  Great  Britain  so  much,  that  instead  of  being  dependent  on 
other  nations  for  works  of  taste,  she  is  now  a  large  exporter  of 
them,  to  the  great  benefit  of  her  exchequer.^  The  United  States, 

1  It  was  not  until  1851  that  the  real  art- education  of  England  began.  It  com- 
menced with  a  reform  of  ordinary  utensils,  by  showing  how  that  even  pots  and 
kettles  could  be  made  as  comely  as  solid.  The  latent  desire  of  beauty  existed, 
but  needed  an  impulse  to  bring  it  out,  and  instruction  to  turn  it  to  good  account. 
One  came  with  the  Exhibition  of  the  art  of  other  nations  in  the  great  Glass  Pal- 
ace, and  the  other  with  the  establishment  of  national  schools  of  art  under  the 
direction  of  the  Committee  of  Council  on  Education,  aided  by  museums,  and 
stimulated  by  prizes  for  drawing  and  design.  The  first  parliamentary  grant 
to  the  schools,  seventeen  in  all,  was  £6,850,  which  sufficed  for  2,482  students. 
In  1863,  the  schools  had  increased  to  ninety,  the  pupijs  to  16,180,  while  the  sub- 
sidy was  reduced  to  £4,005;  and  the  year  after,  so  flourishing  had  they  become 
that  the  House  of  Commons  recommended  that  they  should  for  the  future  be  left 
to  rely  on  their  own  resources,  which  view  was  adopted  by  the  Privy  Council. 

00 


338 


NECESSITY  OF  MUSEUMS. 


although  possessing  greater  natural  resources  and  actually  more 
native  capacity,  does  not  produce  any  objects  of  artistic  value, 
but  contents  herself  with  buying  the  dregs  of  those  of  other  na- 
tions at  an  enormous  cost,  simply  because  of  its  indifference  to 
art  in  general,  and  inability  to  distinguish  between  garish  igno- 
rance and  actual  taste. 

This  condition  is  of  our  own  choice.  Plainly  speaking,  we 
not  only  prefer  the  vulgar  and  debased,  but  we  pay  a  large  pre- 
mium for  it.  The  sole  remedy  is  in  establishing  museums  and 
schools  of  design,  making  art  a  branch  of  general  education,  and 
importing  from  Europe  and  Asia  objects  and  professors  to  in- 
struct us.  In  time  we  may  attain  to  a  taste  that  shall  make  us 
as  independent  of  foreign  nations  for  works  of  art  in  general  as 
we  are  for  cereals. 

Not  that  in  pursuing  this  we  should  neglect  those  solid  mate- 
rial foundations  of  health  and  prosperity  which  legitimately  take 
precedence  in  the  march  of  civilization,  when  only  one  of  the 
two  can  exist  at  once.  The  old  Etruscans  were  wise  in  this 
respect.  They  looked  first  to  good  drainage,  water,  air,  and  ag- 
riculture. Yet  they  so  rapidly  accumulated  precious  objects  that 
Dionysius  of  Sicily,  in  a  filibustering  expedition,  plundered  one 
of  their  sea-side  fanes  of  gifts  of  the  value  of  twenty  million 
Our  oppor-  dollars.  America  is  right  in  looking  first  to  sanitary 
tumty.  economical  measures.    These  accomplished,  let  us 

consider  our  aesthetic  wants.  Only  by  so  doing  shall  we  establish 
for  ourselves  that  foremost  rank  in  modern  civilization  which  the 
vulgar  oratory  of  the  land  already  claims  as  ours.  As  yet  we 
are  foremost  in  nothing  absolutely  great  except  the  opportunity 
which  the  best  government  yet  devised  gives  to  freemen.  Our 
future  depends  on  the  use  we  make  of  that  Opportunity. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

AMATEURSHIP. 

HE  nascent  ambition  evinced  by  Ameri-  nuettante- 
cans  to  establish  galleries  of  paintings  is 
a  favorable  symptom,  especially  as  in  several  in- 
stances they  are  projected  as  much  for  the  public  as 
individual  enjoyment.  But  be  the  motives  of  the 
originators  what  they  may,  this  method  of  developing  taste  is 
yearly  assuming  larger  proportions  and  more  definite  aim, 
although  as  yet  confined  to  modern  pictures.  For  this  narrow- 
ness of  choice  there  is  no  remedy  until  experienced  amateurs  in 
all  branches  of  art,  as  in  Europe,  have  grown  up  among  us,  to 
incite  specific  tastes  and  render  aesthetic  culture,  in  some  degree, 
indispensable  to  a  general  education.  Public  galleries  we  are 
certain  to  possess  in  time ;  and  that  time  is  nigh  or  remote  ac- 
cording to  the  quality  and  extent  of  individual  connoisseurship. 
Just  now  the  empirical  admirer  of  fine  arts  sways  the  fashion 
that  directs  their  course.  Until  dilettanteism  is  superseded  by 
connoisseurship  no  collections  of  permanent  interest  are  likely  to 
be  founded.  Everywhere,  amateurship  is  the  sieve  which 
catches  and  sifts  the  wheat  from  the  chaff,  investigates  the 
origin  and  history  of  objects,  establishes  their  value,  preserves 
and  makes  them  known,  and  finally  secures  for  them  a  home  in 
national  museums.  All  the  great  galleries  have  been  begun 
either  on  the  basis  of  private  collections,  sometimes  royal,  or 
formed  by  the  purchase  of  articles  from  the  collections  of  con- 
noisseurs in  general. 

The  training  of  eye  and  mind  required  to  pronounce  intel- 
ligently on  the  merits  of  contemporary  painting  and  sculpture  is 
readily  acquired  in  comparison  with  the  experience  requisite  to 
decide  about  works  whose  motives  and  styles  have  nothing  in 
common  with  the  present.  But  even  these  demand  a  more 
critical  study  than  the  ordinary  American  amateur  finds  leisure 
to  bestow  on  them.  Hence  the  immediate  results,  as  seen  in 
the  collections  formed,  are  not  as  fair  a  showing  of  modern  art 


340 


DILETTANTEISM. 


as  will  be  seen  when  connoisseurship  becomes  a  serious  pursuit, 
and  a  public  has  been  educated  to  comprehend  and  enjoy  the 
results  of  cesthetical  studies.  There  are  more  snares  in  the  path 
of  the  dilettante  than  he  dreams  of,  besides  the  vulgar  falsifica- 
tions of  the  works  of  popular  artists,  which  are  periodically- 
foisted  on  our  public  as  originals  by  jockeying  dealers  from 
Europe.  Artists  themselves  have  been  known  to  jockey,  buy- 
•  ing  cheap  copies  of  their  favorite  pictures,  adding  a  few  touches, 
and  selling  them  as  their  own  work.  Art,  1  am  sorry  to  say, 
has  its  tricks  of  trade.  Sometimes  a  reputation  is  acquired  by 
the  labors  of  others.  Count  D'Orsay  gained  office,  money,  and 
distinction  as  an  artist,  by  employing  a  clever  draughtsman  and 
modeller  and  an  experienced  painter,  who  had  been  an  assistant 
to  Mr.  Pickersgill,  the  English  academician.  These  men  were 
regularly  salaried,  working  in  his  studio,  but  kept  out  of  sight 
of  his  patrons.  The  count  himself  had  so  confused  a  notion  of 
flesh-coloring  that  he  was  obliged  to  have  "  palettes  made  with 
the  names  of  the  colors  painted  in  their  order  on  their  rim,"  ^  and 
his  assistants  were  in  despair  when  called  on  to  rectify  his  w^ork, 
while  being  no  less  at  their  wits'  end  to  repair  the  injuries  he 
did  to  theirs,  which  was  to  be  palmed  off  as  his  own.  Were 
the  critic  to  go  often  behind  the  scenes,  he  could  demonstrate,  by 
other  conspicuous  instances,  how  easy  it  is  to  delude  a  public  by 
a  fictitious  show  of  talent  into  bestowing  patronage  and  reputa- 
tion on  an  empiric,  especially  in  sculpture,  in  a  land  like  Italy, 
where  skilful  modellers  and  designers  may  frequently  be  hired 
for  less  than  the  wages  of  a  common  laborer  in  America,  and 
where  the  facilities  for  plagiarism  are  so  abundant  and  tempting. 
Undoubtedly  the  counterfeit  artist  in  time  discloses  his  own 
secret.  But  what  we  Americans  need  in  general  is  the  capacity, 
founded  on  knowledge,  of  not  being  taken  in  by  appearances, 
of  comprehending  genuine  work  under  any  name,  of  exposing 
the  fictitious,  and  of  appreciating  excellence  wherever  seen. 
Connoisseur-  The  pathway  to  this  capacity  lies  in  connoisseur- 
skip.  ship.    We  accumulate  riches  in  families  so  rapiflly 

that  an  intellectual  safety-valve  becomes  an  urgent  necessity  to 
turn  idle  talents  to  use,  and  prevent  their  self-destruction.  Act- 
ually it  is  a  grave  social  problem  to  know  what  to  do  with 
the  increasing  numbers  of  young  men  born  to  great  in- 
comes ;  rather  for  them  to  know  what  to  do  with  themselves 
after  leaving  college.  None  will  deny  that  they  ought  to  use 
1  See  ComhUl  Magazine,  June,  1864,  "  Story  of  a  Spoiled  Life." 


CONNOISSE  URSHIP. 


341 


their  means  and  endowments  to  benefit  society,  or  at  least  to 
improve  their  own  minds.  How  different  the  usual  practice  is, 
every  observer  of  the  gilt-edge  youth  can  discern.  One  of 
their  number  said  to  me,  on  my  inquiring  about  his  circle  of  in- 
timates on  his  return  to  Europe  after  a  short  visit  to  his  native 
city,  "  Those  who  had  not  the  delirium  tremens,  had  committed 
suicide."  Soon  after,  he  poisoned  himself;  and  another  I  knew, 
buried  his  lassitude  of  life  in  the  turbid  Thames.  These  are 
floating  straws,  but  they  show  the  set  of  one  of  the  eddies  of 
American  life. 

The  least  intellectual  of  those  who  have  the  misfortune  to  be 
born  to  great  riches,  are  less  likely  to  be  the  victims  of  ennui ; 
for  they  find  consolation  in  field-sports,  the  turf,  and  similar  em- 
ployments. Pursuits  of  a  higher  interest  must  be  provided  for 
men  of  a  finer  mental  fibre,  after  their  animal  pleasures  have 
been  dulled  by  satiety,  if  they  are  to  be  kept  clear  of  melan- 
choly or  self-destruction,  which  is  none  the  less  suicide,  whether 
by  bottle  or  pistol.  For  them  there  is  a  sure  resource  in  fine- 
art  amateurship.  There  are  two  sorts  of  collections:  one  based 
on  connoisseurship,  acute,  learned,  sincere,  stimulated  by  the 
enthusiasm  for  the  beautiful,  accumulating  objects  to  study 
their  history  as  well  as  to  gratify  taste,  and  partaking  of  a 
degree  of  happiness  such  as  no  other  intellectual  passion  more 
intensely  confers  ;  the  other  is  deeper-rooted  in  ostentation  ;  the 
desire  to  possess  what  is  rare,  curious,  or  in  fashion,  without 
regard  to  its  intrinsic  merits ;  a  makeshift  to  kill  time  or  for 
speculation  ;  a  collection  no  sooner  formed  than  dispersed,  either 
for  gain  or  to  begin  on  something  new.  Such  amateurs  are  as 
prone  to  light  on  the  garbage  as  the  jewels  of  art.  Swayed  by 
caprices,  they  slight  one  day  what  they  buy  the  next  at  enor- 
mous cost,  and  are  quite  as  ready  to  hug  to  their  bosoms,  in  the 
ecstasy  of  bearing  it  off  from  rivals  as  foolish  as  themselves,  the 
halter  that  hung  the  last  murderer  as  the  finest  antique  medal 
of  Syracuse. 

But  a  mania  for  collecting  objects  of  no  artistic  value  is  pref- 
erable to  mania  a  potu.  A  series  of  the  most  common  or  ugly 
things  directly  or  indirectly  illustrates  a  period  of  history  or  the 
progress  of  national  industries.  Rich  idlers  do  well,  therefore, 
to  become  collectors  as  a  corrective  to  ennui,  and  to  benefit  the 
public.  It  matters  not  if,  like  the  Marquis  of  Hereford,  they  pay 
thousands  of  pounds  sterling  for  a  few  porcelain  vases;  like 
Signor  Campana  of  Rome,  spend  nearly  two  millions  of  dollars 


342 


FREEBOOTERS  ON  ART. 


iu  amassing  a  vast  multitude  of  classical  and  mediaeval  objects 
with  but  little  sagacity  or  discrimination  ;  or  display  the  taste 
and  knowledge  of  a  Soltikof  and  a  Bla9as  in  forming,  at 
a  moderate  expenditure,  cabinets  of  antiquities  of  inestimable 
value.  Rich  idlers,  in  doing  any  of  these  things,  cannot  fail  of 
pleasurable  excitement,  and  wisely  investing  their  spare  capital, 
if  they  be  sagacious  in  their  acquisitions.  Every  great  collec- 
tion, when  dispersed  at  auction,  has  enriched  its  owners,  if  judi- 
ciously managed,  as  did  that  of  the  late  Count  Pourtales  of  Paris, 
whose  miscellaneous  gathering  of  antique  bronzes,  gems,  pot- 
tery, sculpture,  mediaeval  works,  and  old  and  modern  paintings, 
by  no  means  the  finest,  brought  to  the  heirs  fivefold  their 
original  cost.  It  is  safe,  therefore,  to  say  that  a  collection 
formed  by  a  connoisseur,  not  a  dilettante,  is  a  sound  investment 
of  time  and  money  as  well  as  brains. 

The  critics  There  is  another  aspect  to  amateurship.  It  is  a 
of  America,  conservative,  refining,  expanding,  social  element,  be- 
getting respect  for  the  ideas  and  labors  of  other  races  or  times, 
collating  and  comparing  the  particular  civilization  with  the 
general,  and  local  truth  and  beauty  with  universal.  The  moral 
and  intellectual  bearing  of  it  is  obvious  to  any  one  who  sincerely 
takes  it  up.  But  without  museums  America  has  no  means  of 
forming  a  class  of  connoisseurs  at  home.  Neither  can  she  form 
museums  until  she  can  have  at  command  the  knowledge  as  well 
as  the  money  needed.  Every  premature  attempt  will  be  a 
failure  ;  the  more  ridiculous  in  consequence  of  the  crude  notions 
disseminated  by  a  class  of  literary  guerillas,  who,  without  study- 
ing it,  assault  any  topic  that  offers  booty  to  their  purses  or  feeds 
their  greed  of  notoriety.  These  freebooters  are  of  two  sorts. 
Neither  spare  any  reputation  or  subject  that,  like  the  stately 
ship  for  the  parasitical  barnacle,  presents  a  big  bottom  for  them 
to  fasten  to.  The  healthy  brain  soon  cloys  on  an  oversweet- 
ened  or  highly  spiced  diet  of  aesthetic  cooks.  1  may  cater  no 
better  myself.  But  as  a  detective,  I  am  bound  to  apprise  the 
public  that  sugary  platitudes  in  the  common  style  of  most  of 
"  our  own  correspondents,"  discovering  a  Phidias  or  Titian  iu 
every  American  artist  abroad,  and  a  Pericles  in  every  patron,  are 
an  amiable  delusion.  Even  if  it  were  so,  the  writers,  not  having 
qualified  themselves  to  decide  on  such  matters  any  more  than  to 
sit  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court,  could^not  announce  the 
fact  on  their  own  judgments.  As  a  specimen  of  the  sort  of  critic 
who  traflfics  in  transcendental  flights  of  a  less  indiscriminating 


RUSSELL  STURGIS,  JR. 


343 


but  more  inflammatory  character,  to  the  utter  bewilderment  of 
simple  minds  not  equal  to  the  "  cool,  full  sliock  of  his  style,"  or 
comprehending  how  he  "  freshens  the  driest  mind  "  by  covering 
"  the  gravest  and  meanest  subject  with  the  very  foam  of  human 
speech,"  see  a  popular  writer  on  art  and  men  in  the  "  Galaxy  of 
New  York"  for  January,  1869.  'Pon  honor,  I  quote  correctly; 
not  the  titbits  either,  as  any  one  may  read  in  the  article,  in 
which  the  flamboyant  writer  tells  his  readers  "  with  what  vim 
and  raillery  "  does  the  "  Corinthian  Hurlburt  demonstrate  Sum- 
ner's legs  and  Tilton's  limbs,"  and  how  "  he  whinnies,  and  cara- 
coles, and  prances,"  etc.  By  some  such  adroit  catering  for  our 
magazine  public  as  is  practised  by  wily  concocters  of  "  American 
drinks "  for  thirsty  customers  with  sensational  palates,  certain 
Bedouins  of  the  pen  have  established  themselves  as  authorities 
in  matters  of  art,  without  giving  it  other  serious  thought  than  to 
try  to  "  whinny,  caracole,  and  prance  "  themselves  into  notoriety 
on  its  back. 

American  taste,  however,  is  indebted  to  Russell  Sturgis,  Jr., 
and  Clarence  Cook  for  aesthetic  ideas  and  principles  clearly  stated 
and  practically  applied.  They  have  raised  the  standard  of  ex- 
ecution among  artists  by  insisting  on  their  best,  and  pointing  out 
their  shortcomings  in  the  interest  of  art  itself,  and  to  enlighten, 
not  confuse  or  disgust,  buyers  and  amateurs.  These  may  not 
accept  all  their  conclusions,  but  must  respect  their  zeal  and  the 
example  they  set  of  studying  a  subject  before  criticising  it.^  It 
is  another  encouraging  sight  for  us  that  critics  of  their  calibre 
are  at  work  without  being  seduced  into  the  common  practice  of 
making  everything  pleasant  for  everybody  at  the  expense  of 
critical  discernment  and  honesty.  So  few  risks  are  taken  in 
the  interests  of  any  truth  that  instances  in  art  are  doubly  wel- 
come. 

I  strive  to  exaggerate  neither  our  advantages  nor  disadvan- 
tages, but  to  present  a  true  view  of  their  situation.  Poor  criti- 
cism, like  poor  art  in  its  beginning,  prepares  the  way  for  better. 
Could  it  be  done,  it  would  be  as  impolitic  to  quench  it,  as  to 

1  As  an  architect,  Mr.  Sturgis's  studies  of  late  have  been  particularly  directed 
towards  plans  and  designs  for  public  museums  and  galleries,  which  he  makes  a 
specialty.  Aided  by  counsel  from  Europe,  and  the  experience  recently  acquired 
in  the  new  structures  erected  for  purposes  of  art  in  England,  Germany,  and 
France,  Mr.  Sturgis  has  in  hand  the  means  of  providing  our  public  with  designs 
for  similar  edifices,  which  shall  leave  us  in  no  whit  behind  the  best  abroad  in 
their  essential  points  for  the  accommodation  and  exhibition  of  objects  of  art. 


844 


LIMITATIONS  OF  ARTISTS. 


consign  to  the  lime-kiln  all  inane  sculpture.  It  would  do  no 
good  for  the  public  taste  to  get  far  ahead  of  current  art  and 
criticism.  All  must  advance  together,  each  interest  aiding  the 
other.  One  means  of  increasmg  aesthetic  knowledge  would  be 
to  introduce  schools  of  design  into  our  common-school  system, 
which  could  be  done  as  readily  as  has  been  the  introduction  of 
vocal  music.  The  effect  on  our  industrial  arts,  taking  the  ex- 
perience of  England  in  evidence,  I  have  alluded  to  in  Chapter 
XIII.  It  is  easier  to  compute  the  material  advantages  of  such 
a  step  than  to  exhibit  the  improvement  in  morals  and  manners 
which  would  accrue  from  new  sources  of  rational  happiness,  and 
the  changes  that  would  occur  in  the  general  aspect  of  the  land 
when  each  citizen  not  merely  acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  ele- 
mentary principles  of  art  with  other  branches  of  public  instruc- 
tion, but  with  it  the  ambition  to  make  his  home  as  much  a 
thing  of  beauty  as  it  is  now  of  comfort. 

Another  means  of  acquiring  the  knowledge  needed  to  make 
a  sound  connoisseur  is  his  mistakes.  Nothing  hits  harder  than 
an  exploded  folly  or  delusion.  After  wasting  money  on  ugliness 
or  falsehood,  the  true  and  beautiful  become  clearer  and  dearer 
to  us.  Even  the  wily  fi  aud  of  the  dealer  may  in  the  end  prove 
a  cheap  lesson.  We  may  miss  the  coveted  object,  but  have  ob- 
tained in  its  stead  that  practical  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
which  is  of  more  account  than  the  finest  art  by  itself.  Life  needs 
instruction  in  detecting  both  as  one  means  of  its  moral  and  intel- 
lectual development.  We  see  one  of  our  ideals,  or  think  we  do, 
and  pursue  it  only  to  be  cheated.  What  then  ?  We  have  dis- 
covered the  fidl  measure  of  another  soul,  and  something  besides 
of  a  hitherto  undetected  weakness  of  our  own  to  be  changed 
into  strength  or  despair  at  the  option  of  the  will.  Thieves, 
sneaks,  and  liars  do  more  good  than  they  know. 

Apply  this  principle  to  amateurship.  The  best  judges  of  ob- 
jects of  art  in  general  are  found  not  among  artists,  but  those 
who  stake  their  money  and  reputations  on  thetn  as  dealers,  re- 
storers, or  connoisseurs.  Most  artists  limit  their  instruction  to  a 
speciality  of  their  epoch.  Seldom  do  they  interest  themselves 
in  what  does  not  immediately  concern  their  own  studies  or 
aims.  As  a  class  they  are  more  indifferent  to  old  art  of  any 
kind,  and  less  versed  in  its  history,  character,  motives,  and 
methods,  than  amateurs.  Andrea  del  Sarto  could  buy  for 
Francis  I.  the  best  works  of  the  Florentine  school,  because  he 
was  a  competent  judge  of  his  contemporaries.     So  might  a 


AMATEURS  THE  BEST  JUDGES. 


345 


Velasquez,  Eubens,  or  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  for  their  employer 
or  themselves ;  for  they  knew  by  practical  studies  their  highest 
tests  of  consummate  art,  besides  having  that  faculty  of  constitu- 
tional recognition  of  genius  which  one  great  mind  has  for  an- 
other. Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  Gerome,  Leys,  and  any  artist  of 
their  critical  acumen,  would  decide  better  on  the  technical  merits 
of  other  masters  than  an  amateur.  But  as  America  has  not  as 
yet  artists  of  similar  training,  no  competent  committee  could  be 
formed  of  tliem,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  a  public  gallery, 
although  certain  ones,  who  have  a  liking  for  specific  schools  or 
individual  old  masters,  might  make  useful  suggestions  in  relation 
to  their  favorites.  Artists  of  all  ages,  with  rare  exceptions,  have 
been  noted  for  predilections,  prejudices,  rivalries,  and  a  narrow- 
ness of  view  regarding  art  as  an  entirety  that  largely  disquali- 
fies them  to  judge  candidly  and  wisely  of  works  foreign  to 
their  special  tastes  or  methods.  I  state  this  historical  fact  be- 
cause it  is  frequently  asserted  that  none  but  artists  are  compe- 
tent for  the  office  in  question.  Having  had  a  varied  experience 
with  amateurs,  dealers,  and  artists  of  several  nations,  I  draw  on 
it,  as  well  as  current  history,  for  hints  of  practical  value. 

The  late  Director  of  the  British  National  Gallery,  Sir  Charles 
Eastlake,  although  an  accomplished  artist  himself,  and  an  emi- 
nent art  scholar,  seldom  bought  pictures  for  the  public  on  his 
own  responsibility,  preferring  to  repose  his  judgment  on  the 
critical  eye  of  Otto  Miindler,  whose  knov\dedge  was  gained 
in  large  measure  as  a  dealer.  Count  Nieuwerkerke  relies 
on  the  authority  of  M.  Reiset  and  of  F.  Villot,  amateurs  of 
distinction ;  he,  as  likewise  his  predecessor,  D'Orsay,  owing 
his  position  of  Chief  Director  of  the  Imperial  Museums  of 
France  to  the  friendship  of  the  emperor,  without  reference  to 
any  special  qualifications  for  the  post.  The  director  of  one 
important  gallery,  otherwise  a  gentleman  of  culture,  acknowl- 
edges his  unacquaintance  with  all  pictures,  not  being  able  to  dis- 
criminate between  even  eminent  artists  of  the  same  schools.  A 
cursory  acquaintance  with  the  management  of  European  galler- 
ies serves  to  show  that  artists  have  small  part  in  it.  Indeed, 
the  practical  administration  is  confided  to  amateurs  or  scholars, 
like  the  above  named,  and  to  Waagen,  Cavalacaselle,  Forster, 
Passavant,  Morris  Moore,  Layard,  and  similar  students,  while 
the  nominal  chiefs  are  not  unfrequently  ornamental  names,  in- 
debted to  anything  else  than  their  knowledge  for  their  enviable 
distinctions. 


346 


ORIGIN  OF  FOREIGN  GALLERIES. 


A  foreign  gallery  is  by  no  means  the  infallible  authority 
which  its  reputation  would  imply.  Many  of  them  were  begun 
by  princes  who  bought  pictures  on  the  recommendation  of  in- 
terested parties,  or  acquired  them  for  ostentation,  caprice,  or  as 
a  sort  of  alms-giving  to  needy  artists,  as  is  often  done  now,  with- 
out regard  to  the  merit  of  the  works  themselves.  In  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries,  however,  several  sovereigns  were  dis- 
tinguished for  connoisseurship.  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  Francis  I., 
Charles  V.,  and  some  of  the  popes  took  to  amateurship  seriously. 
As  great  artists  then  abounded,  it  was  easier  to  acquire  first-class 
works  than  it  has  been  since,  and  with  less  risk  of  deception, 
though  there  are  instances  on  record  of  Renaissant  statuary 
being  palmed  off  on  princely  buyers  for  classical.  But  there 
could  be  no  mistake  in  regard  to  paintings  the  execution  of 
which  were  watched  by  the  sovereigns  themselves.  The  few 
thus  done,  or  specially  ordered  by  religious  corporations,  now 
constitute  the  masterpieces  of  modern  galleries.  But  there 
were  also  obtained  with  them  scores  of  inferior  or  worthless 
works,  which  it  would  be  well  to  discard.  Dresden,  Madrid, 
Pitti,  Uffizi,  the  Louvre,  and  other  royal  galleries  were  thus 
initiated  ;  consequently  they  are  better  exponents  of  the  indi- 
vidual tastes  that  originated  them  than  of  an  erudite  system  of 
collecting  works  in  reference  to  their  historical  sequence,  motives, 
and  aesthetic  functions.  The  later  formed  collections  of  Ber- 
lin, Munich,  and  London  have  more  of  this  scientific,  catholic 
spirit ;  an  example  which  has  forced  their  predecessors  to  begin 
to  conform  to  the  true  requirements  of  national  museums,  both 
in  acquisitions  and  arrangement.  But  it  would  be  superhuman 
virtue  if  the  management  of  any  great  gallery  could  be  kept 
free  of  the  jobbery  that  seems  inseparable  from  every  institution 
in  which  the  public  have  an  interest. 

An  English  peer  once  told  me  how  two  votes  in  Parliament 
were  gained  to  the  ministry  by  the  purchase  of  two  inferior  pic- 
tures, at  the  owners'  valuation,  and  no  questions  asked.  It 
would  be  entertaining  and  instructive  to  expose  the  weak  points 
of  the  chief  galleries  of  Europe  with  a  view  to  reform  and  re- 
organization :  to  point  out  how  ihat  the  wholesale  plunder  by 
Napoleon  I.  of  the  works  of  art  was  not  the  greatest  evil  which 
befell  them  ;  for  French  restorers  were  permitted  to  torture  their 
best  life  out  of  many  of  the  finest  pictures  subsequently  re- 
stored to  their  legitimate  owners,  —  a  fact  which  may  account  for 
the  disappointment  at  first  view  to  many  on  seeing  some  of  the 


THEIR  WEAK  POINTS  AND  DEFECTS. 


347 


world's  masterpieces  :  and  further  to  explain  by  what  confusion 
of  ideas  in  regard  to  his  own  and  the  property  of  the  state, 
Napoleon  III.  permitted  some  of  the  best  pictures  of  the 
Louvre  to  be  taken  from  it  to  adorn  the  private  residences  of 
his  particular  friends,  following  the  example  of  the  empress, 
in  placing  in  her  nursery  the  finest  Murillo  in  the  gallery : 
further,  to  show  how  such  a  master  has  been  repainted  out  of 
all  look  of  the  original ;  how  this  one  has  no  trace  of  the 
artist's  brush  left  in  sight  on  it ;  why  such  an  inane  picture  or 
ruined  example  of  a  great  name  got  in,  and  how  such  a  distin- 
guished one  got  out ;  why  under  one  Direction  a  picture  gets 
one  baptism  only  to  be  rebaptized  under  another ;  how  it  is  that 
attributions  acknowledged  to  be  wrong  are  kept ;  how  few  pic- 
tures have  authentic  genealogies ;  the  means  by  which  the  oc- 
casional libels  on  great  masters  are  intruded ;  the  forgeries, 
jockey  ism,  and  flunkeyism  a  great  gallery  draws  in  its  train ; 
the  secret  reasons  why  large  prices  are  sometimes  paid  for  in- 
different specimens  of  an  artist  when  superior  ones  can  be  had 
for  much  less  ;  the  chicanery  by  which  the  sum  paid  by  the 
government  for  an  object  is  made  so  much  in  excess  of  what 
the  owner  would  be  glad  to  receive  were  it  not  for  intermediate 
agencies ;  in  fine,  to  unmask  the  pretensions  and  empirical  man- 
agement of  art  in  high  places,  of  which  the  general  public  can 
know  nothing.  Criticism  is,  however,  slowly  but  surely  doing  a 
good  work  in  all  these  points.  The  public  applauds  the  Direc- 
tion of  the  Louvre  in  paying  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand 
francs  for  a  small  portrait  by  Antonella  da  Messina  because  it  is 
a  masterpiece  of  a  rare  artist  in  fine  condition,  but  it  scorns 
the  jugglery  which  baptizes  the  new  "  St.  John  in  the  Desert "  of 
the  Long  Gallery  by  the  name  of  Raphael ;  it  deplores  that  many 
of  the  old  masters,  notably  the  fine  Perugino  bought  of  the 
King  of  Holland  in  1850,  should  be  left  so  wretchedly  repainted 
in  the  bad  method  recently  in  vogue,  and  which  has  ruined  the 
aspect  of  thousands  of  excellent  paintings  throughout  Europe, 
simply  to  give  jobs  to  favored  restorers,  who  either  wholly  oblit- 
erate or  obscure  the  works  confided  to  them,  and  often  make 
pictures  of  different  artists  and  times  all  seem  as  if  painted  by 
one  hand  ;  the  public  very  justly  condemns  this,  and  rejoices  to 
perceive  that  now  there  is  a  move  in  the  right  direction,  by  re- 
moving some  of  the  uncalled-for  repaintings,  and  restoring  them 
to  their  genuine  though  injured  condition. 

There  are  three  modes  of  restoring  pictures.  First, 
the  only  sensible  one  of  such  local  repairs  as  are 


348 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES. 


necessary  to  confine  it  to  its  original  canvas  or  panel,  or  to  trans- 
fer it  bodily  to  a  new  one,  leaving  the  age  of  the  picture  to 
speak  for  itself,  and  every  drag  of  the  artist's  brush  intact.  No 
old  picture  can  be  as  absolutely  sound  as  when  it  left  its  parent 
easel ;  but  with  ordinary  precaution,  it  will  continue  for  many 
centuries  to  fairly  represent  its  maker.  This  is  all  we  should  ex- 
pect, and  what  we  ought  to  have.  Secondly,  the  foolish  mode 
of  wholly  repainting  the  original  surface  in  various  ways,  the 
worst  of  which  is  by  stippling,  to  the  utter  loss  of  those  condi- 
tions of  the  painting  which  were  a  guarantee  of  its  authenticity, 
and  replacing  them  by  the  rarely  better  and  almost  invariably 
worse  treatment  of  another  hand.  I  am  the  less  inclined  to 
quarrel  with  this  exploded  method  of  restoration,  inasmuch  as 
when  the  original  surface  has  not  been  subjected  to  overmuch 
abrasion  under  the  plea  of  cleaning,  it  has  been  the  means  of 
preserving  numberless  fine  works,  which  can  be  made  to  shine 
in  almost  pristine  splendor  by  simply  removing  with  care  — 
better  by  the  knife  than  by  liquids,  though  each  picture,  like  a 
patient,  requires  its  special  treatment  —  the  superimposed  color- 
ing. Italian  restorers  endeavored  to  retain  the  original  aspect 
of  their  work ;  but  the  French  method  changed  it  entirely, 
making  it  pretty  and  modern,  or  bungling  it  so  as  to  make  it 
seem  neither  ancient  nor  recent.  I  refer  to  Italian  pictures.  In 
the  restoration  of  Flemish  and  German  paintings,  they  were 
more  skilful,  while  Italian  restorers  are  quite  ignorant. 

Thirdly,  there  exists  the  dishonest  method  of  restoration, 
done  with  the  sole  intent  of  deception.  The  original  picture 
in  this  instance  is  either  of  no  merit,  or  it  has  been  entirely 
ruined,  with  but  few  touches  or  a  bare  outline  remaining.  In 
the  former  event,  the  intention  is  to  make  the  work  of  an  infe- 
rior hand,  or  an  old  copy,  appear  to  be  a  veritable  original  of  a 
great  master,  and,  in  the  latter,  to  pass  off  the  wreck  of  a  fine 
picture  for  a  perfect,  intact  one.  Either  case  is  as  much  a  fraud 
as  the  issuing  of  false  notes.  It  does  not  behoove  me  here  to 
expose  the  various  processes  by  which  these  forgeries  are  .ef- 
fected, but  I  simply  state  the  fact ;  also  that  they  are  numerous, 
and  that  there  are  few  gallerie§  or  amateurs  but  have  been 
gulled  by  them. 

^  The  superiority  of  the  "  old  master  "  which  is  left  to  speak 
for  itself,  even  if,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  "  Mona  Lisa,"  the 
surface  is  greatly  abraded,  and  shadows  darkened,  depriving  as 
they  do  this  powerful  portrait  of  its  highest  excellence,  is  still 


PAINTINGS  IN  PRIVATE  HANDS. 


349 


evident  when  contrasted  with  the  flatness,  inharmony,  weakness, 
and  general  poverty  of  aspect  which  characterize  those  pictures, 
like  the  Perugino  already  cited  and  Raphael's  "  St.  Marga- 
ret," which  have  been  treated  by  foolish  restorers,  or  those  more 
solicitous  to  make  up  a  large  bill  for  unnecessary  work  than  to 
respect  the  rights  of  better  men. 

I  cite  these  few  examples  to  illustrate  my  personal  remarks 
on  the  actual  condition  of  European  galleries.  If  America 
were  ready  to  profit  by  the  experieMce  of  the  Old  World,  the 
topic  could  be  enlarged  upon.  Meantime  it  is  sufficient  to  state 
that  neither  foreign  museums  nor  their  administration  are  infal- 
lible. There  is  enough,  however,  to  which  no  exception  can  be 
taken,  to  guide  and  instruct  the  amateur ;  only,  if  he  would  get 
at  the  unadorned  truth,  he  must  occasionally  go  behind  the 
scenes.  Public  galleries  have  not  yet  absorbed  all  of  the  old 
masters.  There  still  exist,  in  the  collections  of  amateurs  and 
in  families,  paintings  which  compare  favorably  with  the  best 
in  the  museums.  Prince  Napoleon  owns  the  loveliest  fresco 
head  of  the  Virgin,  intact,  by  Luini,  now  in  existence  ;  a  head 
which  for  beauty  and  sentiment  in  its  way  may  be  put  in 
comparison  with  those  qualities  in  the  "  Muse  of  Cortona  "  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  II.  As  fine  an  example  as  any  of  the  early 
manner  of  Raphael  remains  in  the  possession  of  the  Connes- 
tabile  family  of  Perugia,  for  whom  it  was  painted,  while  the 
"  Apollo  and  Marsyas,"  owned  by  Morris  Moore,  is  unexcelled 
as  a  specimen  of  his  best  manner,  inspired  by  one  of  the  beau- 
tiful classical  motives,  for  which  he  had  a  special  predilection. 
Upwards  of  sixteen  of  his  recorded  easel  productions  are  yet 
missing,  as  are  several  Leonardos  and  one  Michael  Angelo,  the 
celebrated  "  Leda."  Some  of  these  may  come  to  light  at  any 
moment.  Important,  characteristic  compositions  of  the  latter 
two,  intact,  are  also  in  private  hands  in  Europe.  America 
can  found  a  national  gallery  to  compare  favorably  with  the  best 
European,  if  she  resolutely  sets  about  doing  it ;  one  which  shall 
leave  no  serious  vacancy,  unless  it  be  of  the  last  mentioned 
master.  Some  of  the  great  artists  would  be  represented  by 
their  smaller  easel  pictures ;  Jbut  even  these  could  be  such  as 
would  fairly  present  their  technical  qualities  and  average  merits. 
It  is  true  that  the  cost  of  objects  of  art  of  the  first  class  aug- 
ments yearly,  but  so  does  the  price  of  everything  else  of  abso- 
lute value.  There  is,  however,  no  call  to  follow  the  example 
of  many  European  galleries,  in  accumulating  scores  of  the  pic- 


350 


IMPORTANCE  OF  GALLERIES. 


tures  of  the  same  artist.  Enough  to  show  the  general  scope 
and  style  of  the  chiefs  of  each  school,  are  all  that  is  required. 
Repetitions  are  to  be  avoided,  because  they  fatigue  the  eye,  dis- 
sipate the  attention,  and  drain  resources  that  had  better  be  re- 
served for  what  is  wanting  to  make  a  gallery  a  complete  exposi- 
tion of  art  universally.  Unartistic  and  common  work  of  any 
period,  unless  it  has  an  archaic  or  historical  value,  should  be 
excluded.  Nor  is  it  advisable  to  follow  far  the  decadence  of 
any  branch  ;  for  all  that  comes  after  its  climax  is  passed,  is  certain 
to  go  from  bad  to  worse  in  rapid  sequence.  In  general,  art  in  its 
decadence  is  as  loose  in  its  principles  as  vulgar  and  faulty  m 
execution.  Consequently,  both  the  taste  and  morals  of  a  com- 
munity are  safer,  if  spared  any  unnecessary  parading  before 
them  of  false  and  degraded  styles. 

Few  persons  have  any  conception  of  the  crowd  of 
a  enes.  yisitors  a  gallery  attracts.  A  conjecture  of  the  num- 
ber that  visit  the  Louvre  and  Versailles  museums,  may  be  haz- 
arded from  the  fact  that  more  than  three  hundred  thousand 
francs  are  received  annually  from  the  sale  of  catalogues  which 
are  probably  not  bought  by  one  visitor  in  twenty.  Before 
canes  and  umbrellas  were  admitted  with  their  owners,  one 
hundred  thousand  francs  were  taken  in  one  year  from  their  de- 
posit at  the  doors.  At  the  current  fee  of  two  sous  each,  this 
sum  would  represent  one  million  persons  who  brought  these 
articles  with  them.  Undoubtedly  there  were  very  many  more 
who  did  not  thus  encumber  themselves.  It  is  notorious  that 
the  inhabitants  of  any  city  are  less  disposed  to  enjoy  their  own 
sights  than  those  who  are  obliged  to  journey  to  see  them. 
Hence  it  is  reasonable  to  compute  that  the  one  million  Paris- 
ians do  not  furnish  one  tenth  part  of  the  frequenters  of  their 
galleries.  The  statistics  of  the  British  museums  give  corre- 
sponding results.  They  exhibit  indirectly  the  pecuniary  advan- 
tages conferred  on  those  communities  which  possess  artistic 
attractions  of  sufficient  interest  to  draw  to  them  vast  concourses 
of  sight-seers,  independent  of  the  instruction  and  enjoyment 
they  proffer  to  the  inhabitants  themselves.  Indeed,  not  a  few 
towns  in  Europe  may  be  said  almost  to  live  on  their  old  art, 
which  really,  especially  in  Italy,  constitutes  for  the  whole  coun- 
try a  productive  capital  of  untold  value,  supporting  a  large  num- 
ber of  people.  As  is  natural  in  America,  we  tliink  more  of  estab- 
lishing railroads  and  other  channels  of  commerce.  But  were 
one  of  our  towns  to  own  a  great  museum,  visitors  would  flock 


jESTHetic  quality  of  races.  351 


thither  from  all  parts  of  the  Union  in  such  numbers  as  would 
soon  repay  its  outlay,  and  leave  it,  as  it  were,  a  free  gift  to  pos- 
terity, with  a  prolific  income  for  the  benefit  of  the  citizens  at 
large.  The  pecuniary  gain  would  be  none  the  less  because 
chiefly  flowing  in  from  indirect  sources.  Providence  so  regu- 
lates cause  and  effect,  that  the  best  things  morally,  intellectually, 
and  aesthetically,  are  certain  of  the  best  consequences,  in  not 
merely  these  respects,  but  ultimately  in  material  well-being. 
To  use  an  expressive  Americanism,  Central  Parks  '■'■pay"  So 
do  national  museums,  as  that  city  will  discover  which  is  the 
first  to  found  one  on  a  Central  Park  scale  of  organization  and 
administration. 

I  sometimes  think  that  there  is  more  aesthetic  bottom  jEsthetic 
to  the  half-fledged  American  people  than  to  any  of  the  ^Americans. 
older  races  at  this  moment.  It  has  often  happened  to  me  to 
witness  the  impressions  received  from  works  of  art  by  amateurs 
of  different  nations,  and  their  constitutional  varieties  of  tempera- 
ment as  regards  them.  The  average  Englishman  —  I  speak  of 
the  cultivated  amateur  —  is  an  intellectual  lover  of  art  in  rela- 
tion to  its  historical  antecedents  rather  than  its  aesthetic  aspects. 
He  appreciates  the  relative  power  of  names,  styles,  and  charac- 
terization in  a  serious  way,  without  exuberance  of  feeling ; 
judges  cautiously,  but  dogmatically,  and  on  the  whole  fairly, 
though  apt  to  let  his  strong  likings  take  the  transient  impress 
of  a  fashion  for  this  or  that  object  or  artist.  A  Frenchman 
gets  animated,  analyzes  keenly  technical  points,  compares  quickly, 
criticises  decisively  and  incisively,  generally  from  the  material 
aspect  of  art,  though  prone  to  discover  and  enjoy  the  spirituel 
element.  His  delight  is  positive  and  detective  ;  somewhat  nar- 
row in  its  spiritual  apprehension,  but  intense  in  its  peculiar  di- 
rection. Germans  manifest  more  genealogical  and  historical  acu- 
men, perceiving  details,  and  drawing  inferences  overlooked  by 
others,  and  are  prone  to  speculate  thereon.  Theirs  is  a  sound, 
hearty,  and  learned  enjoyment ;  slightly  "  dry-as-dust,"  but  in- 
structive. The  Russian  is  more  of  a  cosmopolitan  amateur, 
with  no  very  decided  preferences,  but  disposed  to  enjoy  every- 
thing after  its  kind,  without  tormenting  himself  with  carping 
criticism  or  superfluous  investigation.  If  he  be  less  informed 
than  the  other  nationalities,  he  has  a  compensation  in  a  quick  eye 
and  active  sensibilities.  An  Italian  amateur  is  chiefly  made  up  of 
the  traditions  of  his  past ;  has  but  slight  knowledge  or  interest 
in  the  present ;  rejoices  in  the  reflected  glory  of  the  old  masters  ; 


352 


THE  AMERICAN  AMATEUR. 


•I 


is  local  and  isolated  in  taste  and  judgment,  but  aesthetic  in  feel- 
ing, and  sensitive  to  impressions ;  less  disposed  to  critical  anal-  i 
ysis  and  independent  judgment  than  the  Frenchman,  but  more  i 
appreciative  of  the  whole.  He  accepts  a  reputation  as  it  has  j 
descended  to  him,  understands  the  good  points  of  his  special  ! 
school,  and  retains  something  of  the  old  disturbing  jealousy  \ 
which  magnifies  one's  own  city  at  the  expense  of  a  rival's. 

This  sketch  is  superficial,  but  has  recognizable  fact  for  a  ; 
foundation.    In  remarking  that  the  American  amateur  may 
have  more  aesthetic  bottom  than  the  European,  I  do  not  imply 
that  he  is  his  equal  in  culture,  but  that  his  incipient  taste  has  a 
freer  range ;  that  he  has  a  nice  detective  instinct,  is  quick  at  ; 
apprehending  and  applying,  has  no  prejudices  of  national  train- 
ing to  uproot,  —  his  drawbacks  to  a  catholic  comprehension  of  *' 
art  being  more  negative  than  positive,  —  that  he  inclines  to  the 
true  and  beautiful,  enjoying  both  just  as  fast  as  he  has  an  op- 
portunity to  get  acquainted  with  them ;  that  he  is  either  ex-  i 
tremely  reticent  or  enthusiastic  in  his  preference;  and,  finally, 
that  as  to  form  the  American  type  of  man  all  civilizations  are  i 
fused  into  one  new  being,  so  the  coming  American  amateur  * 
bids  fair  to  be  more  susceptible  to  esthetic  influences  than  any 
other.  With  this  large  susceptibility,  there  is  dawning  an  equal  ; 
ambition,  crude  and  unformed  now,  but  only  lacking  the  knowl-  j 
edge  which  comes  from  culture  and  experience,  to  do  away 
from  America  the  reproach  now  cast  on  it  by  learned  Europe- 
ans, of  being  a  great  nation  destitute  of  any  art. 

My  purpose  in  this  chapter  would  be  but  partially  fulfilled, 
were  I  not  to  give  such  of  my  own  experience  in  amateurship 
as  may  prove  of  use  to  those  of  similar  inclinations.    As  has 
been  already  said,  the  deceptions  practised  on  amateurs,  and  the  i 
risks  they  run  of  being  cheated,  are  one  of  the  surest,  if  not  \ 
the  most  agreeable  means  of  acquiring  the  needful  knowledge.  , 
Presuming  equal  caution  and  good  sense,  there  are  no  more  i 
risks  attending  the  buying  works  of  arts  than  other  objects. 
So  far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  I  have  been  more  successful  ; 
in  receiving  an  equivalent  for  my  money  in  them  than  in  the  , 
usual  channels  of  business.    I  have  met  with  quite  as  much  hon-  I 
esty  and  liberality  at  the  hands  of  dealers  in  pictures  and  curiosi-  | 
ties  as  any  other  class  of  traders.    It  is  the  more  incumbent  on  ' 
me  to  state  this,  that  the  only  important  exception  I  have  to  nar-  i 
rate  may  not  be  taken  as  the  rule  of  the  class  of  merchants  ' 
with  whom  the  amateur  is  brought  into  close  relations.  | 


A  BORN  COLLECTOR. 


353 


I  was  born  a  collector.  As  soon  as  promoted  to  the  dignity 
of  pockets,  I  collected  shells,  then  minerals,  coins,  Indian  rel- 
ics, rare  books,  and  whatever  America  in  my  boyhood  had  to 
offer  that  was  strange  and  interesting  to  one  of  my  means 
and  opportunities.  Besides  the  wholesome  physical  occupation 
given  by  these  pursuits,  there  is  much  and  varied  instruction  to 
be  gotten,  which  becomes  a  prolific  source  of  intellectual  en- 
joyment in  riper  years.  The  genuine  collector  has  in  him  a 
force  of  enthusiasm  that  sometimes  makes  a  fool  of  him,  but  in 
the  end  carries  him  triumphant  through  many  a  strait,  giving 
to  his  labors  a  pleasurable  zest  such  as  can  be  appreciated  only 
by  those  who  have  partaken  of  it.  Looking  back  now  in  the 
decline  of  life,  with  a  judgment  sobered  down  to  the  standard 
of  advice  once  given  me  by  a  veteran  dealer  of  Rome,  "  Never 
to  buy  a  picture  with  a  hot  head,"  I  almost  covet  the  return  of 
the  delicious  thrills  of  earlier  times,  when  my  desire  to  possess 
was  more  urgent  than  prudence,  and  my  imagination  more  act 
ive  than  reason.  A  born  collector  can  no  more  avoid  taking 
impromptu  risks  and  committing  extravagances  than  the  gosling 
fail  to  take  to  swimming.  Yet  in  an  experience  of  more  than 
thirty  years,  though  sometimes  mistaken  in  an  attribution,  or 
in  the  actual  condition  of  an  article,  I  have  but  once  paid 
dearly  for  a  lesson.  This  was  in  part  due  to  the  confidence 
bred  in  me  by  the  fairness  with  which  I  had  been  treated  by 
picture-dealers  in  general,  especially  Italians,  and  partly  to  my 
desire  to  make  my  collection  of  early  Italian  paintings  more 
worthy  of  the  public  position  which  its  friends  desired  for  it, 
as  the  basis  of  an  American  gallery,  showing  the  chronological 
and  historical  sequence  of  Italian  art  from  its  revival  in  the 
thirteenth  century  to  its  decadence  in  the  seventeenth.  That 
competent  student  and  critic,  Russell  Sturgis,  Jr.,  says,  "  It 
would  be  very  difficult  now,  and  it  will  not  be  less  at  any 
future  time,  to  form  another  collection  of  an  hundred  and 
twenty  pictures  which  should  at  all  approach  this  one  in  value, 
etc."  1 — fortifying  his  own  judgment  by  eminent  European 
authorities. 

1  "  Introductory  Essay  "  to  Manual  of  the  Jarves  Collection  of  Early  Italian 
Pictures  deposited  in  the  Galleries  of  the  Yale  School  of  Fine  Arts.  New  Haven : 
Published  by  Yale  College,  1868.  Also  the  New-Jtnglander  for  January,  1848. 
Extract  from  a  letter  to  the  authorities  of  the  College  from  Charles  E.  Norton 
of  Cambridge:  "It  is  several  years  since  I  saw  this  collection,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  its  value  and  importance  have  been  much  increased  by  the  additions 
which  Mr.  Jarves  has  made  to  it;  but  even  as  I  knew  it,  it  was  a  collection  of 
23 


354 


A  SPURIOUS  LEONARDO. 


Every  genuine  first-class  work  added  to  a  collection  enhances  ; 
the  interest  and  value  of  the  whole.  Hence  one  is  tempted  to  ; 
pay  more  largely  for  such  an  acquisition  than  if  it  were  to  stand  ■ 
by  itself,  esjDecially  if  it  fills  an  important  gap  in  the  series,  j 
I  state  this  to  account  for  my  endeavor  to  have  my  collection  i 
still  more  satisfactorily  represent  the  schools  and  masters  whose  ! 
epoch  it  covers,  and  also  why  I  hazarded  a  sum  of  money  on  a  i 
single  picture  which  I  never  should  have  ventured  solely  for  ! 
personal  gratification.  My  zeal  at  this  juncture  had  been  stim-  j 
ulated  by  the  apparently  fair  prospect  of  speedily  seeing  estab-  i 
lished  a  free  gallery  of  art  on  a  large  scale  in  my  native  town,  —  ' 
Boston.  I 

So  much  for  my  openness  to  being  swindled.  This  is  how  it 
was  done.  There  was  in  Paris  a  picture-dealer  whose  position 
and  clientage  to  a  stranger  as  naturally  inspired  confidence  as 
those  of  any  eminent  banker.  Inquiring  of  him  in  1865  if  he 
had  any  genuine  first-class  Italian  pictures,  I  was  shown,  among 
others,  three  which  pleased  me  ;  a  Giorgione,  Luini,  and  a  Leo- 
nardo da  Vinci,  the  latter  represented  to  be  the  missing  "  Saint 
Catherine  "  described  in  Rigollot's  "  Catalogue  of  the  Works  of 
Leonardo,"  and  also  in  Le23icie's  "  Catalogue  Raisonne  des  Tab- 
leaux du  Roi  Louis  XY.,  a.  d.  1752,"  with  w^hose  description  it 
agreed.  He  says,  "  St.  Catherine  est  represents  avec  une  limhe 
autour  de  la  tete ;  elle  est  couronnee  de  jasmin  ;  de  la  main 
droite  elle  tient  un  livre  ouvret  ;  et  de  la  gauche  elle  paroit  tournee 
un  feuillot.  Un  des  deux  anges  qui  sont  aupres  de  la  sainte 
tient  un  palm  et  V autre  Viiistrument  de  martyr.''  ^  \ 

Without  wearying  the  reader  with  the  subtle  statements  by  i 
which  I  was  induced  to  believe  that  the  picture  was  that  de-  j 
scribed  by  Lepicie,  I  will  merely  say  that  I  finally  bought  it 
and  the  two  others,  on  the  assurance  of  their  authenticity  and  \ 
sound  condition,  of  Woolsey  Moreau,  their  owner.  Soon  after,  | 
discovering  that  the  "  St.  Catherine  "  was  a  falsification,  I  brought  j 
a  suit  for  the  restitution  of  my  money,  the  purchase  having  i 
been  made  for  the  round  sum  of  90,000  francs.    Although  the 

the  highest  value  in  this  country,  as  illustrating  by  well  chosen  examples  the 
historical  development  and  progress  of  Italian  art.    There  are  lew  collections 
in  Europe,  if  we  exclude  the  galleries  in  the  great  capitals,  which  surpass  it  in 
this  important  respect,  and  very  few  in  which  the  proportion  of  valuable  and 
interesting  pictures  is  as  great,  as  compared  with  the  whole  number.    Such  a 
collection  would  make  a  truly  magnificent  foundation  for  a  gallery,  and  the  : 
institution  that  would  acquire  it,  would  have  an  easy  preeminence  over  all  I 
other  schools  of  art  in  America."  j 
1  Vol.  i.  p.  11. 


1 


THE  TRIAL. 


355 


other  two  pictures  were  genume,  they  made  a  part  of  the  con- 
tract, counting  in  the  apprisal  at  considerably  less  than  half  the 
price  asked  for  the  Leonardo,  which  was  the  chief  inducement. 
The  evidence  on  which  I  based  my  claim  was  derived  from 
eminent  Italian  and  French  experts,  including  artist-restorers 
like  Ugobaldi  of  Florence,  Hossin  Deon,  restorer  of  the  pictures 
of  the  "  Musees  Nationaux,"  Roehn,  Gerome,  Baudry,  and 
other  distinguished  painters,  all  of  whom  concurred  in  testifying 
to  the  falsity  of  its  attribution.  But  the  chief  proof  of  decep- 
tion rested  on  the  declaration  of  the  artist-restorer,  M.  Cordeil, 
who  testified  that  M.  Moreau  had  placed  this  picture  in  his  hands 
about '  three  years  and  a  half  previous,  after  it  had  been  trans- 
ferred from  an  old  panel  to  a  new  one,  and  enlarged  several 
inches  at  the  sides  and  bottom.  The  figures,  without  being 
modern,  are  not  of  the  epoch  of  Leonardo,  but  were  subjected 
to  the  modifications  in  measurements  and  design  which  were 
requisite  to  make  the  picture  seem  to  be  the  lost  one  in  ques- 
tion, giving  in  detail  the  exact  nature  of  the  alterations  made, 
and  the  technical  treatment  the  picture  underwent  by  the  in- 
struction of  M.  Moreau,  to  enable  him  to  give  to  it  the  false 
attribution  by  which  it  was  finally  sold.  It  also  was  shown 
that  the  picture  was  bought  in  1861  at  the  Hotel  Druot  for 
twelve  hundred  and  seven  francs,  which  could  not  have  been 
done  had  it  been  the  genuine  work  of  Leonardo,  of  the  value 
of  fifty  thousand  francs,  the  price  asked  by  Moreau. 

The  trial  before  the  Cour  Imperial  might  have  been  even  a 
more  complete  exposure  of  the  methods  of  changing  ancient 
copies  or  the  works  of  inferior  men  into  old  masters  of  repute, 
if  the  court  had  permitted  the  witnesses  to  be  cross-examined 
before  them,  instead  of  simply  receiving  their  written  declara- 
tions, and,  still  better,  of  subjecting  the  painting  itself  to  the  proof 
which  would  have  rendered  all  such  testimony  unnecessary. 
My  counsel  demanded  that  either  the  picture  should  be  tested 
in  the  presence  of  the  court,  or  that  a  commission  of  artist- 
restorers  should  be  officially  appointed  to  report  its  precise  con- 
dition, agreeing  on  my  part  that  if  the  picture  proved  to  be 
genuine,  I  would  submit  to  the  detriment  and  loss  occasioned  by 
the  process  ;  while  its  falsity  would  be  incontestable  as  soon 
as  the  repaintings  and  changes  done  by  the  command  of  M. 
Moreau  were  taken  off,  and  the  original  condition  of  the  pic- 
ture as  described  by  M.  Cordeil  revealed.  This  was  refused, 
and  the  decision  given  against  my  appeal,  on  the  ground  that  I 


356 


DECISION  OF  THE  COURT. 


had  experience  in  buying  old  masters,  and  M.  Moreau  had  given 
every  means  he  possessed  for  the  identification  of  the  painting.^ 
On  his  part  M.  Remond  gave  an  opinion  that  the  picture  had 
been  subjected  only  to  legitimate  restorations,  while  the  character 
of  the  original  design  and  modelling  was  so  "  irreproachable," 
it  was  impossible  for  M.  Cordeil  to  have  made  the  alterations  he 
had  testified  to  ;  in  fine,  he  had  never  touched  the  picture  at  all. 
As  the  judgment  of  the  court,  without  absolutely  declaring  the 
authenticity  of  the  painting  implied  it,  I  soon  after  received  a 
proposition  to  the  following  effect :  "  You  have  been  '  t'oZe,' 
every  one  knows,  but  the  court  indirectly  guarantees  immunity 
to  the  seller.  Naturally  you  want  to  get  your  money  back. 
Put  the  picture  into  our  hands  to  be  disposed  of,  and  you  shall 
receive,  when  sold,  a  sum  that  will  at  least  partially  reimburse 
you  for  the  swindle." 

So  far  as  the  decision  of  the  court  confirmed  the  legality  of 
the  sale  by  M.  Moreau  and  denied  to  me  the  absolute  means  of 
proving  the  falsification  of  the  picture  by  unveiling  it  before  the 
tribunal;  perhaps  I  had  acquired  the  same  legal  right  of  selling 
it  as  a  Leonardo  that  he  had  had.  Instead,  however,  I  sub- 
jected it  at  the  hands  of  a  competent  person  who  was  unac- 
quainted with  its  history,  to  the  same  chemical  process  by 
which  I  had  begged  the  court  to  test  its  genuineness.  By  my 
directions  and  in  my  presence,  he  removed  from  one  half  of  the 
picture  the  repaintings  to  which  it  had  been  subjected  by  M. 
Moreau,  leaving  the  remaining  portion  in  the  condition  in  which 
it  had  been  sold.  The  result  confirmed  in  every  particular  the 
testimony  of  M.  Cordeil.  Apparently  it  was  a  greatly  damaged 
old  copy,^  not  of  a  Leonardo,  but  of  the  "  St.  Catherine  "  by  Luiui 
once  at  Nuremberg.  The  composition  had  been  enlarged  from 
sixty-six  centimetres  in  height  and  fifty-seven  wide,  to  eighty- 
two  by  sixty-six  centimetres ;  the  new  portion  being  entirely  the 
work  of  the  restorer,  while  the  contour  of  the  figures  and  other 
details  had  been  varied  to  fit  them  more  precisely  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  composition  in  question,  as  known  by  engravings  and 
description,  with  such  variations  in  small  points  as  might  sug- 
gest Leonardo's  hand,  as  well  as  the  obscurations  of  time  and 
the  hard,  cracked,  enamel-like  surface,  which  the  old  masters 
show,  even  beneath  repairs  and  varnishes.    There  were  three 

1  See  Gazette  des  Tribtmaux,  29th  and  30th  April,  1867,  Paris,  for  the  official 
report. 

2  Some  good  judges  say  an  original,  by  Luini. 


JUSTICE  IN  FRANCE. 


357 


distinct  repaintings,  one  in  tempera,  one  in  oil,  and  the  other  in 
the  technical  method  called,  by  the  Italians,  "  restauro  a  vernice.** 
A  few  days  after  the  decision,  a  M.  Detrimont,  picture-mer- 
chant, who  had  sold  for  three  thousand  five  hundred  francs  to 
M.  Verdier,  a  Frenchman,  an  original  sketch  of  an  unfinished 
work  attributed  to  Eugene  Delacroix,  bought  for  four  hun- 
dred and  eighty  francs,  and  subsequently  converted  into  an 
apparently  complete  work  of  that  master,  was  condemned  to 
refund  the  price  paid,  and  pay  fifteen  hundred  francs  damages. 
The  argument  was  that  it  was  high  time  to  give  a  severe  lesson 
to  the  falsifiers  of  objects  of  art,  "  qui  se  rencontrent  partout" 
II  ne  faut  pas  qu^  a  Paris  on  puisse  vendre  impunement  de 
faux  tableaux'^  ^  The  severity  of  the  court  against  M.  Detri- 
mont, in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  established  the  authenticity  of 
the  sketch,  and  pleaded  that  the  changes  were  simply  retouches 
of  which  the  buyer  was  made  cognizant,  is  the  more  remarkable, 
coming  so  soon  after  the  "  Cour  Imperial "  had  made  it  lawful 
for  a  dealer  to  give  any  attribution  he  pleased  to  a  repainted 
picture,  which  the  most  eminent  experts  pronounced  to  be  not 
by  the  master  by  whose  name  it  was  sold.  I  could  cite  from 
the  records  of  the  French  tribunals  a  number  of  instances 
similar  to  that  of  M.  Bossel  de  Mouville  in  1858,  who  was 
deceived  into  purchasing  some  false  enamels  and  dishes  of 
Palissy  ware,  which  prove  their  strictness  in  punishing  fraud 
whenever  a  Frenchman  is  the  victim.  The  seller  in  this  case 
was  condemned  to  fifteen  months'  imprisonment  and  a  heavy 
fine.  A  curiosity-dealer,  named  Barre,  sold  to  M.  Dauble  for 
six  thousand  francs  a  Louis  XVI.  chest  of  drawers  stated 
to  have  belonged  to  Marie  Antoinette.  The  purchaser,  find- 
ing it  was  repaired  in  various  places,  and  parts  were  quite 
new,  brought  a  suit  to  recover  his  money.  The  defence  was 
that  the  authenticity  of  it  had  not  been  guaranteed,  and  that 
it  actually  was  an  article  called  by  the  trade  a  Louis  XVI. 
chest  of  drawers.  But  Barre  was  condemned  to  refund  the 
money  and  interest.  The  late  Baron  James  Rothschild,  an 
amateur  of  infinitely  more  experience  than  myself,  had  had  no 
difficulty  in  obtaining  restitution  when  he  was  cheated  into  buy- 
ing false  candlesticks,  and  having  the  fradulent  seller  punished. 

Facts  like  these  misled  me  into  believing  that  the  same 
principle  of  justice,  based  upon  the  Article  1353  of  the  Code 
Napoleon,  which  permits  the  intention  of  fraud  to  rest  upon 
1  Gazette  des  Tribunaux,  3  Mai  1867,  Paris. 


358 


MISTAKES  AND  SWINDLES. 


"  presomptions  graves,  precises  et  concordantes^^  to  quote  from 
the  decision  of  tlie  Civil  Tribunal  of  the  Seine,  would  be  impar- 
tially-apph'ed  to  every  one  without  distinction.  But  before  my 
case  was  adjudicated,  I  had  been  indirectly  advised,  from  high 
authority,  that  my  appeal  was  hopeless.  Had  the  decision  been 
against  Moreau,  it  would  have  shaken  rudely  the  value  and 
prestige  of  many  pictures  which  had  passed  from  his  secret 
studio  into  distinguished  collections.  There  would  have  been  a 
full  disclosure  of  how  they  were  manufactured  by  clever  artists 
liberally  provided  with  means  for  amusing  themselves,  besides 
their  regular  salaries,  and  kept  carefully  out  of  the  observation 
of  buyers ;  and  this  would  have  been,  as  was  argued,  greatly  to 
the  detriment  of  what  rogues  call  a  lawful  commerce.  No 
dealer,  however  unscrupulous,  sells  only  false  works.  To  make 
these  salable,  he  must  obtain  a  reputation  for  genuineness.  The 
same  merchant  can,  therefore,  sell  true  or  false  objects,  or  mingle 
them,  according  to  the  degree  of  confidence  or  ignorance  of  his 
client.  Probably  no  other  American  amateur  would  be  gulled 
as  I  was.  But  if  disposed  to  purchase  in  Paris,  he  is  welcome 
to  profit  by  my  experience  in  learning  how  that  "  caveat  emptor  " 
is  the  principle  applied  by  the  courts  to  the  foreigner,  and 
"  caveat  actor  "  to  the  native. 

I  should  not,  however,  have  said  so  much  of  myself  in  this 
matter,  were  it  not  that  the  result  of  the  suit,  based  on  the 
oflBcial  decision,  which  ignored  the  proof  of  the  falsity  of  the 
Leonardo,  and  even  gave  to  it  the  air  of  genuineness,  had 
been  widely  circulated  by  the  European  and  American  press, 
occasioning  many  questions  to  me  from  various  parties,  which 
are  now  answered.  The  picture  I  keep  as  a  proof  of  the 
injustice  of  a  judgment  compelling  me  to  pay  for  a  forgery 
the  price  of  a  genuine  work,  to  show  how  these  forgeries  are 
executed,  and  as  a  monitor  should  another  costly  hallucina- 
tion threaten.  Few  amateurs  go  free  of  similar  experiences. 
Although  an  artist  of  repute.  Sir  Charles  Eastlake  was  egregi- 
ously  taken  in  more  than  once  in  buying  for  the  National  Gal- 
lery, while  neglecting  to  secure  genuine  pictures  of  real  im- 
portance for  less  sums  than  were  paid  for  spurious  or  ruined.^ 
The  authorities  of  the  Louvre  bought  a  forged  bust  of  Benivieni 
for  one  of  the  school  of  Donatello.  Frequent  instances  might 
be  cited  of  mistakes  made  by  those  whose  official  positions 
and  long  experience  sliould  be  a  guarantee   against  imposi- 

1  See  Report  from  the,  Select  Committee  on  the  National  Gallery,  London,  1855. 


TWO  CLASSES  OF  AMATEURS.  359 


tions.  They  serve  to  show  that  there  is  a  fallible  side  to  the 
best  informed.  The  real  point  of  interest  to  the  public  is  that 
the  mistakes  should  not  be  so  covered  up  as  to  mislead  the 
student,  and  a  false  or  worthless  object  exhibited  as  a  real  one 
to  save  wounded  reputations  or  regain  wasted  money. 

Besides  those  who  collect  for  speculative  purposes  or  os- 
tentation, there  are  two  classes  of  amateurs  proper.  The  num- 
ber of  the  first  is  legion,  embracing  royal  and  noble  families, 
and  persons  of  all  ranks  and  professions,  down  to  the  seedy  vag- 
abonds of  the  streets,  who  hawk  dirty  works  of  art  as  the 
needy  Jew  does  old  clothes.  A  multitude  of  individuals  in 
Europe  increase  their  incomes,  or  gain  their  livelihood  one  way 
with  another  by  this  traffic,  which  is  approved  by  many  who 
would  scorn  a  regular  business.  Even  the  legitimate  amateur 
is  often  drawn  into  it,  by  buying  at  times  more  than  he  de- 
sires to  keep,  in  order  to  secure  a  coveted  article,  or  replace 
an  inferior  by  a  superior  one,  whether  he  collects  only  in  refer- 
ence to  beauty  and  rarity,  or  by  system  to  illustrate  a  period  or 
school,  confining  himself  to  a  special  purpose  rather  historical 
than  aesthetic.  It  is  less  the  money  than  sound  judgment  and 
perseverance  that  secures  a  valuable  collection  of  either  sort. 
One  of  the  finest  museums  of  mediaeval  arts  was  got  together 
by  M.  Sauvageot  out  of  a  slender  salary  as  a  violinist  to  a 
theatre  in  Paris,  and  by  him  bequeathed  to  the  nation.  The 
Marquis  of  Hereford's  various  acquisitions  are  an  example  of 
what  lavish  expenditure  can  command  on  the  whim  of  the  mo- 
ment. In  my  case,  I  had  to  spend  only  what  was  gained  by 
my  own  exertions,  or  saved  by  economies  in  other  directions. 
The  chief  value  of  the  old  masters  I  got  together,  consists  not 
so  much  in  a  few  masterpieces  of  great  cost,  as  in  a  series  of 
characteristic  specimens  of  the  leading  Italian  painters,  illustrat- 
ing the  motives,  progress,  and  styles  of  the  various  schools,  and 
affording  as  yet  the  only  opportunity  in  America  of  their  com- 
parison and  study.  There  are,  however,  a  number  of  special 
importance  and  rarity,  worthy  of  any  foreign  gallery,  and  which 
have  been  either  engraved  or  noticed  in  standard  works  on  art.. 
I  may  be  permitted  here  to  name  a  few  on  the  authority  of  well, 
known  names,  not  to  forestall  the  judgment  of  connoisseurs,, 
for  the  highest  evidence  of  the  value  of  any  object  of  art  must 
be  found  in  itself,  but  to  show  to  the  general  reader  that  I  havO' 
neither  collected  nor  spoken  at  random.  Further,  as  the  ap- 
preciation of  sucli  studies  for  the  present  must  be  almost  en- 


360 


HIGHEST  SATISFACTION. 


tirely  European,  I  am  warranted  in  giving  to  the  American 
spectator  some  testimony,  beside  my  own,  that  my  effort  to  be- 
gin a  gallery  for  my  native  country  has  borne  genuine  fruit,  as 
regards  the  pictures  themselves,  whether  the  final  object  of  a 
public  museum  based  on  it  in  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  our 
Union  be  attained  or  not.  The  highest  satisfaction  of  all,  that 
of  making  as  it  might  be  the  personal  acquaintance  of  so  many 
distinguished  artists  of  the  past,  entering  into  their  lives  so  as 
to  feel  them  bodily  present  as  friends  with  whom  I  hold  rich 
converse,  believing  I  may  continue  in  another  life  the  inter- 
course begun  here,  reckoning  intervening  centuries  as  naught,  — 
this  supreme  satisfaction  which  has  cheered  and  sustained  me 
through  many  vicissitudes,  cannot  be  imparted  to  another.  If 
I  had  not  had  this  spiritual  communion  with  generations  gone, 
through  the  medium  of  what  they  have  left  behind  visible  to 
our  senses,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  have  written  this 
book.  Whatever  reception  it  may  meet  from  those  whose  eyes 
are  still  unopened  to  the  profounder  aspects  of  art,  my  own 
treasure  of  association  and  experience  must  remain  undimin- 
ished. The  American  amateur  of  fine  art  has  no  audience  at 
home.  He  must  fortify  his  spirit  against  the  common  preju- 
dice, which  views  his  occupation  as  a  frivolous  pursuit,  if  not 
worse,  and  against  the  special  ignorance  and  indifference  some- 
times of  his  warmest  friends,  who  will  bluntly  call  his  superb 
Maestro  Giorgio  an  old  pudding-dish,  or  his  beautiful  Sano  di 
Pietro  a  Chinese  daub.  It  requires  intellectual  pluck  to  be 
a  collector  in  America  of  unknown  things.  But  when  appre- 
ciation does  come,  it  is  heartfelt,  and  sincerely  expressed. 
Both  ignorance  and  sympathy  here  are  honest.  Gladly 
would  I  have  offered  in  these  pages,  and  in  my  collection, 
entire  loaves  of  art.  Failing  in  power  to  do  this,  some 
of  the  crumbs  which  I  have  picked  up  from  the  tables  of  the 
masters  with  whom  for  many  years  I  have  broken  bread, 
may  be  acceptable  to  a  few.  But  they  must  accept  them  as 
mere  crumbs. 

By  a  sort  of  compensation  for  my  ill-fortune  in  Paris,  already 
narrated,  I  did  obtain  a  picture  which  proved  to  be  a  gen- 
uine Leonardo,  in  excellent  condition,  representing  the  Ma- 
donna and  Child,"  with  a  background,  on  one  side,  of  the 
Castle  of  Ferrara,  and  on  the  other  one  of  the  Lombardy  lakes, 
presenting,  in  exquisitely  finished  but  largely  conceived  dettiils, 
the  force  of  chiaroscuro,  power  of  modelling,  theory  of  light 


A  GENUINE  LEONARDO. 


361 


and  coloring,  and  intense  characterization  which  are  the  chief  at- 
tributes of  this  rare  master.  On  seeing  it,  A.  F.  Rio,  author  of 
the  "  Poetry  of  Christian  Art,"  wrote  to  me,  "  I  have  not  the 
least  hesitation  in  declaring  that  I  fully  believe  it  to  be  the 
work  of  that  master.  I  cannot  help  envying  your  good  luck 
in  making  such  a  valuable  acquisition.  The  genuine  pictures 
of  Leonardo  are  so  rare  that  the  want  of  one  has  left  to  this 
day  a  sore  gap  in  the  gallery  of  many  a  sovereign." 

Baron  Hector  Garriod,  eminent  Italian  authority,  concludes 
a  long  letter  covering  the  technical  argument  as  to  its  authentic- 
ity, as  follows :  "  The  tone  also  of  your  painting  — '  un  hrun 
ardoise'  —  is  that  peculiar  hue  of  Leonardo's  —  his  ceil  de 
couleur '  —  which  connects  itself  particularly  with  the  chemical 
and  scientific  processes  of  that  great  man.  The  tone  of  his  imita- 
tors is  quite  different.  With  Luini  it  is  golden,  violet  with 
Solaris,  brilliant  and  Raphael-like  with  Cesare  da  Sesto,  reddish 
with  Mario  D'Oggione  and  Beltraffio,  and  too  free  and  carac- 
terise  with  Giovanoni  or  Sodoma,  to  be  confounded  with  his. 
I  dare  predict  for  you  a  signal  success  in  the  arena,  which  your 
painting  deserves  to  enter,  and  to  dispute  with  a  very  small 
number  of  concurrents,  the  coveted  honors  of  so  elevated  a  rank." 

The  late  Professor  Migliarini,  Director  of  the  Utfizi  Gallery, 
himself  an  artist  and  critical  connoisseur  of  European  reputation, 
after  a  severe  examination  of  the  picture  left  in  his  hands,  writes 
a  lengthy  artistic  criticism,  showing  its  originality,  of  which  it  is 
only  necessary  to  give  a  short  extract.  "  I  will  not  enumer- 
ate the  many  different  artists  of  whom  you  have  obtained  beau- 
tiful specimens,  such  as  Cimabue,  the  Giotteschi,  Pollajuolo, 
Ghirlandajo,  and  many  others,  but  confine  myself  to  that  gem 
of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  which  it  seems  to  me  incredible  that 
you  should  have  been  able  to  fall  in  with  and  possess,"  etc. 

But  the  most  familiar  authority  to  Americans,  as  well  as 
graphic  description,  comes  from  the  pen  of  Holman  Hunt,  whose 
letter,  dated  Florence,  November  21,  1868,  is  as  follows :  — 

"My  Dear  Sir, — 

"  For  the  last  two  weeks,  I  have  had  my  hands  so  full  of 
work,  that  I  have  been  unable  to  write  to  you  about  your  two  pic- 
tures, the  Luini  and  the  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  which  jDleased  me 
so  much  when  you  were  last  kind  enough  to  let  me  see  your 
pictures.  The  first-named,  with  the  exception  of  some  parts  of 
the  face  of  the  infant  Saviour,  seems  to  me  to  be  in  a  very  per- 


362 


LETTER  OF  HOLMAN  HUNT. 


feet  condition,  and  to  be  a  very  excellent  example  of  the  com- 
bination of  qualities  of  great  simplicity,  and  almost  heroic  dig- 
nity of  beauty,  with  a  richness  of  painting  and  color  which 
together  are  found  only  in  the  works  of  the  Lombard  school 
after  Leonardo's  time.  The  Roman  and  Florentine  schools  are 
both  wanting  in  lusciousness  of  texture  and  tint  —  while  the 
Venetian  school  is  certainly  inferior  in  ideality  of  form.  I  say 
this,  not  by  way  of  finding  fault  with  either,  but  only  to  illustrate 
what  I  mean  in  saying  that  the  Milanese  combined  both :  to  be 
more  exact,  I  might  particularize  and  add  my  conviction  that, 
while  in  design  and  beauty  the  Milanese  were  not  inferior  in 
any  degree  to  the  Roman  school,  in  painting,  although  superior  to 
all  other  provinces,  they  were  not  equal  to  the  Venetians.  Yet  in 
looking  at  their  works,  one  has  no  feeling  of  there  being  some- 
thing wanting  in  this  respect,  as  is  certainly  the  case  when  I  am 
looking  oii  even  the  best  Raphael  or  Michael  Angelo.  Your 
Luini,  considering  the  great  difficulty  of  getting  any  gallery  pic- 
ture of  his,  is  to  me  a  very  beautiful  and  satisfactory  example  of 
this  Milanese  compound  excellence.  I  see  no  reason  whatever 
to  doubt  its  genuineness.  The  head  of  the  Virgin  is  full  of 
beauty,  and  the  management  and  painting  of  the  background 
would  honor  any  reputation. 

"  The  Leonardo  was  painted  by  the  man  who  made  the 
school,  but  who  had  no  leisure  to  study  the  beauty  that  might 
come  in  sweetness  of  touch,  in  mellowness  of  tint,  in  reflected 
lights,  and  richness  of  color.  He  was,  as  it  were,  staring  into 
black  vacancy  with  the  determination  to  conjure  up  a  solid 
dream  of  beauty  of  form  as  his  single  thought ;  his  color,  as  his 
light  and  shade,  served  principally  to  distinguish  —  to  make 
more  tangible  his  conception.  However,  even  while  he  had 
the  whole  anxiety  of  making  his  changing  visions  into  per- 
manent pictures,  and  thus,  bit  by  bit,  developing  the  grand  Italian 
style  of  invention,  he  was  equal  as  a  colorist  and  chiaro-scurist 
to  Raphael  —  and,  therefore,  to  any  other  Roman  painter,  and 
superior  in  modelling.  Your  little  picture  quite  satisfies  me  as 
a  small  example  of  work.  I  am  a  bad  bargainer  in  saying  all 
this,  and  then  asking  you,  if  circumstances  should  leave  you  free 
to  sell  it,  to  let  me  have  the  first  offer  of  the  Leonardo,  but  an 
artist  must  say  what  he  feels  about  a  picture,  whether  it  be  to 
his  own  loss  or  not  —  and  certainly  I  would  not  appear  to  put 
any  check  upon  myself,  in  treating  with  you  in  such  a  matter. 
Should  you  be  able  to  sell,  and  I  be  able  to  buy,  you  may 


YALE  SCHOOL  OF  FINE  ARTS. 


363 


have  the  comfort  of  feeling  that  while  circumstances  leave  it  at 
all  possible,  it  will  remain  in  my  studio,  free  from  danger  of 
every  kind,  such  as  it  would  meet  with  in  the  hands  of  picture 
dealers  and  restorers. 

"  Believe  me,  yours  faithfully, 

"  W.  HoLMAN  Hunt." 

Sig.  Emilio  Burci,  Inspector  of  the  Uffizi  Gallery,  writes  to 
me,  "  I  congratulate  you  upon  a  selection  of  paintings  of  our 
older  Tuscan  schools,  which  must  have  cost  you  much  persever- 
ing research  and  money.  Among  the  number,  by  no  means 
small,  of  excellent  ones,  permit  me  to  especially  notice  as  very 
remarkable  and  rare,  even  among  us,  the  '  Rape  of  Dejanira,' 
by  Antonio  Pollajuolo,  the  beautiful  '  Madonna  and  Child,'  by 
Botticelli,  '  St.  Girolomo,'  by  Fra  Fillipo  Lippo,  '  Annunciation,' 
by  Lorenzo  di  Credi, '  Sacra  Familia,'  by  Lo  Spagna,  and  the 
extremely  rare  and  beautiful  '  Adoration  of  the  Magi,'  by  Luca 
Signorelli." 

I  might  fill  many  pages  with  similar  testimonials  from  Eu- 
ropean amateurs  and  officers  of  various  academies  and  galleries, 
but  enough  have  been  given  to  prove  that  these  old  masters 
merit  the  attention  of  those  interested  in  the  culture  of  art  in 
our  country.  The  best  credentials  are  the  objects  themselves, 
but  as  yet  there  are  comparatively  few  Americans  qualified  to 
pronounce  on  them. 

There  are  one  hundred  and  twenty  pictures  now  temporarily 
deposited — not  sold,  as  it  is  often  stated  in  the  public  prints  — 
in  the  Yale  School  of  Fine  Arts ;  and  about  twenty-five  ^  others, 
including  some  of  the  most  valuable  and  important,  still  in 
Europe,  awaiting  a  convenient  opportunity  to  be  added  to 
those  in  New  Haven.  But  this  depends  on  finding  an  insti- 
tution devoted  to  Art,  in  one  of  our  cities,  willing  to  carry 
out  my  plan  of  a  public  gallery  based  on  historical  sequence 
of  motives  and  the  regular  progress  of  technical  improvement 
and  changes  of  style,  so  arranged  that  the  best  aesthetic  effect 
as  a  whole  shall  be  produced.  In  most  European  galleries 
of  old  foundation,  notably  the  Pitti,  the  pictures  are  sacrificed 
to  the  exigencies  of  localities  not  designed  in  reference  to 
light  or  artistic  effect.  Hence  in  this  and  the  Uffizi  there  is 
a  conglomeration  of  styles,  epochs,  and  masters,  joined  to  in- 
efficient light,  exceedingly  confusing  to  the  student  and  detri- 
1  See  London  Athenceum,  of  June  5th,  1869. 


364 


SHALL  WE  HAVE  A  GALLERY? 


mental  to  the  objects  themselves.  By  a  judicious  rearrangement 
and  uniting  of  the  Pitti,  Uffizi,  and  Belle  Arti  galleries,  be- 
sides the  adoption  of  a  system  of  national  exchanges  by  which 
the  redundant  Florentine  masters  might  be  bartered  for  those  of 
other  schools  which  are  wanting,  separating  sculpture  from 
painting,  grouping  the  Titians,  Raphaels,  Leonardos,  and  chief 
masters  each  by  themselves,  Florence  would  have  a  unique 
gallery.  Spam,  France,  England,  and  Germany,  each  might  be 
induced  to  exchange  some  of  the  surplus  masterpieces  of  their 
own  artists  for  Italian,  to  their  mutual  benefit.  America,  in  the 
outset,  can  erect  galleries  which  shall  secure  the  essentials  of 
light,  ventilation,  and  systematic  aesthetic  distribution.  But 
until  there  is  something  to  put  into  them  they  would  be  useless 
structures.  Having  labored  so  long  in  this  cause  I  am  not  will- 
ing to  abandon  it  except  in  the  last  personal  extremity,  or  until 
convinced  that  Americans  have  no  sympathy  whatever  with  it. 
At  the  risk  of  being  charged  with  obtrusive  egoism  I  venture  to 
make  a  final  appeal  in  this  form,  inviting  any  of  my  country- 
men who  do  sympathize,  or  any  institution  making  art  culture 
an  object,  to  confer  with  me  on  a  feasible  plan  of  aesthetic  edu- 
cation and  keeping  together  for  public  use  the  collection  of  old 
masters  as  a  basis  of  a  free  gallery.  Up  to  this  time  I  have 
never  been  able  to  exhibit  the  entire  gallery  in  America.  Even 
the  beautiful  edifice  at  New  Haven  founded  by  Mr.  Street, 
which  is  all  that  could  be  desired  for  light,  is  crowded  with  the 
portion  that  is  hung  there.  Were  I  a  rich  man,  I  could  not 
possess  a  house  ample  to  contain  and  exhibit  them.  Nothing 
short  of  a  large  public  museum,  erected  expressly  to  accommo- 
date works  of  art,  would  suffice.  If  dispersed,  as  they  must  soon 
be,  unless  a  suitable  building  is  prepared  to  receive  them,  how- 
ever pleasing  the  isolated  pictures  might  be  to  private  owners, 
the  benefit  of  the  series  collectively  would  be  lost  to  the  public, 
as  also  to  myself  the  aim  of  eighteen  years  of  expenditure,  toil, 
and  study  ;  although  for  my  own  daily  gratification,  and  the  in- 
struction of  my  children,  I  would  greatly  prefer  to  select  my 
favorite  pictures  to  hang  on  my  own  walls.  As  it  now  exists,  it 
offers  a  modest  foundation  for  other  amateurs  of  more  means 
and  knowledge  to  establish  on  it  a  museum  of  art,  which  may 
be  enlarged  so  as  to  meet  the  aesthetic  wants  of  one  of  our 
cities  as  agreeably  and  usefully  as  does  the  newly  established 
museum  at  Kensington  that  of  London. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


THE  ART  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

HE  brief  summary  given  of  past  and  present  phases 
of  the  aesthetic  life  of  nations  naturally  suggests 
some  thoughts  regarding  its  future.  As  a  basis 
we  must  take  a  retrospective  view  of  each  domi- 
nant principle  and  aspect  of  the  several  great  peri- 
ods which  underlie  the  art  of  to-day.  It  is  unnecessary  to  recall 
the  specific  styles  of  early  paganism ;  to  wit,  the  Egyptian,  Hin- 
doo, Etruscan,  or  Assyrian,  but  we  can  limit  our  glance  to  its 
highest  form,  the  Grecian.  To  this  there  is  to  be  opposed  the 
antagonistic  mediaeval  art,  its  special  reaction  towards  classical 
influences  under  the  guise  of  the  late  Renaissance,  and  those 
democratic  motives  which  are  coextensive  with  the  spread  of 
Protestant  ideas. 

Art  is  the  material  representative  of  the  ideal,  whether  it  be 
on  a  spiritual,  intellectual,  or  sensual  basis.  Hence,  to  predicate 
of  the  art  of  an  epoch  we  have  first  to  get  a  clear  vision  of  its 
immediate  passion,  or  what  it  most  covets.  The  basis,  there- 
fore, of  any  profound  art,  is  in  the  popular  religion.  What- 
ever a  man  absolutely  loves,  that  he  worships  or  esteems 
dearest  to  his  soul.  The  Greeks,  passionately  loving  beauty, 
strength,  and  wisdom,  made  of  these  abstract  ideals  a  faith,  and 
of  their  ideal  forms  an  art.  Theirs  was  essentially  the  poetical- 
imaginative  ;  its  primary  and  final  significance  being  aesthetic 
pleasure. 

Imagination  equally  controlled  mediaeval  art,  which  was  the 
offspring  of  an  even  more  profound  human  love  ;  not  of  present 
pleasure  but  of  future  bliss.  As  has  been  shown,  the  pagan, 
seeing  in  his  earthly  organization  the  means  of  realizing  his 
ideal,  strenuously  sought  to  reach  it  by  the  cultivation  of  his 
physical  and  mental  powers.  But  the  Christian,  viewing  the 
sensuous  faculties  as  snares,  put  them  under  a  ban.  Stimulating 
his  imagination  by  an  intense  belief  in  a  delightsome  life  beyond 
the  grave,  he  projected  into  his  art  corresponding  pictures  of  the 


866 


RETROSPECTIVE  VIEW. 


occupations  and  conditions  of  his  future  home  in  the  heBvens  ; 
and  to  keep  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  spiritual  joys  more  acute 
in  his  soul,  he  let  loose  on  his  outward  senses  an  ideal  world 
of  physical  horrors,  or  the  bottomless  pit  of  burning  torments 
called  a  hell,  preaching  the  while  with  fanatical  fervor,  asceti- 
cism, as  an  additional  safeguard  against  the  seductions  of  his 
material  being.  Though  the  means  were  so  antagonistic,  the 
ends  in  view  of  pagan  and  Christian  art  were  similar.  Each 
acted  on  a  common  principle  of  an  ideal  happiness.  But  the 
Christian  scope  and  application  was  even  more  one-sided  and 
limited  than  the  other.  Excluding,  if  it  might,  every  element 
of  the  sensuous  and  sensual,  it  sowed  the  seeds  of  its  overthrow 
in  its  own  bosom.  These  grew  up  into  the  shapes  of  the  bastard 
Renaissance,  that  based  its  ideal  on  corrupt  mundane  pleasures 
and  human  power  as  opposed  to  divine  power.  Both  classical 
and  mediaeval  art  had  worshipped  the  godlike,  as  each  compre- 
hended the  term,  with  noble  effect  in  their  respective  forms. 
Even  the  element  of  Fear  in  the  latter,  as  exhibited  in  the  effigies 
of  devils  and  the  damned,  was  a  restricted  one  when  compared 
with  that  of  Love.  The  beautiful-ideal  in  the  shape  of  angels, 
holy  Virgins,  and  the  bright  beings  that  administer  to  the  spirit- 
ual comfort  and  joy  of  men,  everywhere  abounded,  while  the 
pictures  and  plastic  representations  of  the  demon-side  of  Chris- 
tianity were  comparatively  sparse  and  rare.  But  when  the  Re- 
naissance became  degraded  into  a  vulgar  worship  of  man-power 
and  an  exhibition  of  the  aristocratic  ideal  of  tyranny  and  lusts, 
art  lost  its  saving  grace  and  became  a  wretched  epitome  of  hu 
man  foolishness,  until  the  democratic  spirit  born  of  Protestant- 
ism, rescued  it  from  exclusive  hands,  and  breathed  into  it  new 
forces  of  life.  An  ideal  founded  wholly  on  worldly  ambitions 
and  passions,  necessarily  partakes  of  their  transitory,  material 
nature,  and  is  devoted  to  presenting  them  in  every  possible  vari- 
ety as  the  ultimate  of  human  desire.  Its  forms  may  be  legiti- 
mate and  wholesome.  They  are  apt  to  be  selfish,  sensual,  or 
foolish.  But  the  moment  human  aspiration  rises  above  a  mun- 
dane level  into  an  ideal  atmosphere  of  the  godlike,  be  it  of 
Olympus  or  Paradise,  it  lifts  art  bodily  into  a  more  elevated 
sphere.  However  greatly  the  virtue  of  pagan  may  differ  from 
the  virtue  of  Christian  art  proper,  both  seek  to  exalt  humanity  by 
presenting  to  it  examples  of  an  ideal  perfection,  and  eliminating 
whatever  corrupts  and  makes  a  lie.  We  may  have  an  agree- 
able art  speaking  to  the  sensations,  or  an  intellectual  one  to  the 


TWO  WAYS  OF  HAPPINESS. 


367 


mind,  on  the  plane  of  the  worldly  ideal ;  but  no  art  can  be  pro- 
foundly great,  beautiful,  and  good,  unless  its  aspirations  are  stim- 
ulated by  hopes  and  visions  that  have  not  their  exact  counter- 
part and  fruition  in  our  earthly  being.  In  its  largest  sense, 
religion  is  that  state  of  soul  which  ardently  craves  ideal  good- 
ness, beauty,  and  felicity.  Art  that  ignores  it  has  no  perma- 
nent, universal  value. 

Two  ways  present  themselves  of  securing  the  spiritual-  happi- 
ness held  in  store  as  a  compensation  for  trials  in  present  life  ; 
one  founded  on  a  divine  revelation  of  man's  ideal,  calling  for 
unquestioning  faith,  and  the  other  on  all-sifting  reason,  which 
by  means  of  human  philosophy,  would  subject  all  faiths  to  the 
scrutiny  of  exact  science.  Before  the  period  of  the  Reformation 
of  Luther,  the  spiritualistic  way  most  obtained.  Mankind,  how- 
ever, was  not  so  much  spiritual-minded,  in  the  true  acceptation 
of  this  phrase,  as  prone  to  emotional  life  ;  their  passions,  senti- 
ments, and  imaginations,  whether  superstitiously  or  devoutly  led, 
being  more  exercised  than  their  logical  faculties.  Profound  re- 
ligious feeling  at  that  time  permeated  art.  But  it  lost  its  force 
and  gradually  passed  into  oblivion,  as  it  was  brought  in  contact 
with  the  growing  rationalistic  tendencies  of  the  era  of  printed 
books.  What  art  lost  in  profundity  and  spirituality  it  gained  in 
breadth  and  variety  ;  in  naturalness,  so  to  speak,  on  the  com- 
mon plane  of  humanity.  Passing  first  from  ecclesiastical,  then 
from  aristocratic  control,  it  grew  more  and  more  democratic  and 
commercial  ;  more  domestic  in  its  motives ;  more  disposed  to 
illustrate  the  facts  of  ordinary  men's  lives,  their  hopes,  beliefs, 
passions,  and  deeds  ;  to  adorn  the  fireside  rather  than  the  palace 
or  cathedral  ;  to  go  to  common  nature  for  subjects  ;  to  catch  her 
passing,  and  record  her  permanent  truths  in  a  realistic  sense  ;  in 
fine,  art,  under  Protestant  guidance,  became  less  abstract,  less 
ideal,  either  as  ecstatic  joy  or  ascetic  suffering,  and  more  a  thing 
of  home  life,  suited  to  the  popular  apprehension  and.  tastes. 
The  change  has  been  a  radical  one,  though  not  yet  completed. 
Art  is  in  a  condition  of  transition.  Dogma,  as  a  vital  authority, 
has  ceased  to  govern  it.  Then,  too,  the  old  spiritual  ideal  has 
passed  away  while  the  new  is  yet  unformed.  So  it  happened  to 
classical  art.  The  interregnum  then,  however,  was  one  of  igno- 
rance, superstition,  and  debased  conceptions.  Now,  if  we  have 
no  high  art,  we  possess  a  wholesome,  pleasurable,  natural,  in- 
structive one.  I  speak  in  a  general  sense,  referring  especially 
to  the  sound  morality  and  comprehensive  motives  of  the  Prot- 


368 


SPIRIT  OF  OUR  CENTURY. 


estant  schools  and  the  French  purists.  Not  content  with  illus- 
trating modern  life  in  its  every-day  moods,  like  Hamon  and  his 
followers,  or  Leys  and  his,  they  go  back  to  mediaeval  scenes  and 
pagan  homes  for  motives,  vividly  bringing  before  our  eyes  the 
picturesque,  historic,  and  domestic  past.  The  old  art  was  more 
restricted  in  knowledge,  science,  and  ideas,  though  more  intense 
and  ecstatic.  Its  capacity  of  comfort  and  hope  to  individuals  of 
a  certain  temperament  or  training  undoubtedly  was  greater,  but 
as  a  means  of  happiness  and  improvement  to  the  masses,  its 
power  was  less.  Yet  the  promise  of  our  present  art  is  far  be- 
yond its  actual  realization.  This  must  continue  to  be  materi- 
alistic and  unimaginative  so  long  as  it  gives  more  stress  to  the 
outward  fact  than  the  inward  life,  refuses  to  admit  the  inspira- 
tion of  a  purer  religious  faith  than  that  of  the  past,  and  does  not 
attain  that  just  balance  of  thought,  science,  and  imagination 
which  is  needed  to  produce  consummate  work. 

The  spirit  of  our  century,  however  defective,  is  still  eminently 
humanitarian  in  contrast  with  all  preceding.  If  the  dogmatic 
forms  of  Christianity  have  lost  much  of  their  power,  peoples  be- 
gin to  comprehend  better  the  gospel  meaning  of  "  peace  and 
good  will  to  all  men ; "  to  take  a  more  intelligible  view  of  divine 
goodness  and  wisdom ;  and,  as  a  whole,  more  seriously  inquire 
what  they  shall  do  to  be  saved.  Thought  being  freed,  truth 
comes  to  the  light  as  never  before.  Science  is  no  longer  made 
to  be  an  enemy  to  religion.  Mediaevalists  in  the  main  were  con- 
tent, or  forced  to  be,  to  believe  whatever  was  told  them  by  the 
Church,  without  self-inquiry.  Moderns,  rejecting  monopolies 
of  all  sorts,  decide  more  on  personal  responsibility  those  prob- 
lems which  most  affect  individual  welfare  now  and  hereafter. 
Theology,  as  a  science,  is  descending  from  the  keeping  of  a  caste 
to  the  understandings  of  the  many,  greatly  to  the  spread  of 
those  universal  principles  of  love,  faith,  and  charity  which  soften 
the  hearts  of  men,  and  cause  them  to  regard  each  other  more 
fraternally  as  children  of  one  Father. 

This  speculative,  moral  view  of  humanity  may  be  viewed  as 
foreign  to  my  topic.  But  if  we  admit  that  religion  is  the  sound- 
est basis  of  a  noble  art,  then  whatever  gives  more  breadth,  vigor, 
and  depth  to  the  religious  sentiments  must  proportionally  atfect 
art.  Rationalism  is  in  the  ascendant  just  now,  and  wisely ;  for 
it  sifts,  probes,  and  justifies  all  things,  though  it  does  not  always 
see  so  far,  deeply,  or  intently  as  the  imaginative  faculties.  Our 
highest  art  is  now  the  abstract  in  book-forms.  But  will  it  al- 
ways remain  there 


FRESH  HEAVENS  OPENED. 


369 


Whenever  the  pure  ethics  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  shall  exor- 
cise from  religion  the  narrowness,  bigotry,  irfationalism,  and  dis-  ; 
turbing  influences  of  sectarian  dogmas,  the  freed  imagination  ] 
will  see  visions  of  celestial  things  more  radiant  than  ever,    ^s-  ! 
thetics,  morality,  philosophy,  and  faith  must  come  more  into  har- 
mony.   Out  of  the  great  joy  and  progress  thus  begotten,  fresh  ' 
heavens  will  be  opened  to  mortal  eyes,  which  shall  become  a  J 
model  for  a  new  sacred  art,  far  exceeding  in  beauty  the  departed.  j 
A  thousand  years  in  His  sight  are  as  one  day.    None  can  tell  \ 
the  hour  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord.    Neither  can  one  foresee  i 
the  whole  nature  and  functions  of  the  new  phase.    But  may  we  ' 
not  conclude  that  the  abstract,  dogmatic,  and  symbolical  will  give  I 
way  to  a  more  vivid  and  rational  apprehension  of  spiritual  life 
than  has  hitherto  obtained  ?    Angels  will  then  be  "  the  spirits  \ 
of  just  men  made  perfect,"  needing  no  wings  to  symbolize  their  \ 
celestial  functions.    There  will  be  more  Virgins  than  one  ;  com- 
plete women,  chastely  maternal,  fulfilling  duties  with  holy  joy. 
Saints  will  increase,  requiring  no  martyrdom  of  their  bodies  to 
confirm  their  titles  to  salvation.    The  Word,  whether  received  j 
as  the  Father,  Son,  or  the  Spirit,  will  be  approved  to  human  in-  \ 
telligence  as  Divine  Love,  Wisdom,  and  Beauty.    Then  may  \ 
men  be  moved  by  their  new  ideal  of  a  heaven  not  made  with 
hands,  to  construct  edifices  consecrated  to  their  new  happiness, 
such  as  art  has  not  yet  conceived.     Hitherto,  the  current  '■ 
theology  or  belief  in  God  and  Devil  has  overflowed  in  fanat-  i 
ical  extremes  on  to  this  earth,  making  of  religion  to  the  many 
either  a  forced  sacrifice,  irrational  belief,  or  dark  despair ;  evil  , 
so  often  overcoming  good  as  to  beget  the  gross  materialism  j 
which  now  so  widely  obtains  in  Italy,  France,  and  Spain,  to  | 
the  loss  of  the  former  repose  in  sacred  art  and  rites,  without  ; 
so  far  substituting  in  the  masses  the  logical  convictions,  en-  ' 
terprise,  and  restlessness  leading  to  liberal  progress  that  is  ^ 
found  in  America.     It  is  only  the  bravest  of  freethinkers  in 
those  countries  that  dares  to  die  unreconciled  to  the  ecclesiastics 
whose  authority  they  contemned  while  in  health.    Even  an  ex-  j 
communicated  Cavour  sends  for  the  sacraments  in  his  death-hour,  i 
In  my  own  family  an  Italian  maid  disbelieves  altogether  in  fu- 
ture existence,  and  yet  dares  not  neglect  any  ordinance  of  the  j 
Church.    Few  Italians  can  now  be  found  to  say  with  St.  Fran- 
cis in  his  mediaeval  hymn,  "  Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister,  j 
the  death  of  the  body"    If  there  be  anything  they  especially  | 
dread  it  is  death  ;  next,  growing  old.    Their  heaven  for  centu-  \ 
24               .  ■ '! 


I 


370 


OLD  DIVERSION;  MODERN  INFIDELITY. 


ries,  like  that  of  the  French,  has  settled  more  and  more  into 
the  earth,  carrying  both  peoples  down  with  it. 

The  mediaBvalist  had  more  diversion.  So  did  the  Greek. 
Their  art  soothed  and  gladdened  their  lives.  But  their  succes- 
sors, deprived  of  all  of  their  faith  except  its  fear,  have  become 
sad  and  timid ;  half  skeptic,  half  hypocrite ;  not  knowing  either 
how  best  to  enjoy  this  existence,  or  secure  a  firm  hold  on  a  bet- 
ter. The  perpetual  struggle  of  Paris  to  look  gay,  fresh,  and 
prosperous  on  the  outside  is  a  mournful  fact  of  its  phase  of  mod- 
ern civilization.  A  grimace  on  every  lip,  and  a  worm  in  every 
heart.  Sad  is  it  to  him  who  sees  what  is  behind  the  gas-lights, 
and  detects  the  wrinkled  skin  underneath  the  enamelled  face. 
Americans  are  charged  with  not  knowing  how  to  amuse  them- 
selves. But  there  is  far  more  real  animation  of  heart,  of  social 
and  civic  life,  faith  in  themselves,  their  country,  and  their  God ; 
more  vitality  and  absolute  rational  enjoyment  of  existence  in 
America  than  in  Europe,  especially  outside  of  England  and 
Germany.  This  intenser  spirit  is  not  due  to  any  constitutional 
superiority  of  one  race  over  another,  but  to  a  fuller  liberty  of 
self-development.  An  upheaval  of  old  conditions  of  society  in 
view  of  reconstruction  is  apparent  everywhere,  but  nowhere  is 
the  movement  more  active  than  in  the  Great  Republic.  Our 
new  solutions  of  social  and  political  problems  are  having  a  more 
quickening  effect  in  Europe  than  we  receive  from  the  fruits  of 
their  long  tried  civilizations.  What  we  get  back  in  ideas  or 
populations  speedily  disappears  in  the  more  powerful  solvent  of 
American  institutions,  to  reappear  in  forms  indigenous  to  the 
continent.  That  which  Europe  receives  in  return  each  year 
leavens  it  more  profusely  with  American  results,  which  are 
steadily  sapping  the  foundations  of  its  old  political  fabric.  It 
was  not  until  that  shout  of  joy  went  up  from  the  throats  of  the 
European  aristocracy  at  the  supposed  overthrow  of  the  American 
Union  by  rebels,  that  America  became  conscious  of  her  moral 
weight  abroad.  Sometimes  we  cavil  at  the  name  of  America 
for  not  being  sufficiently  distinctive  of  our  nationality.  But  it 
seems  as  if  Providence  had  bestowed  it  on  us  as  a  token  that 
we  are  to  occupy  the  entire  continent  as  one  people  of  one  name 
and  will. 

The  art  that  is  to  grow  out  of  such  a  destiny  will  be  com- 
mensurate to  its  grandeur  and  beneficence.  Lavater  says,  "  He 
only  who  has  enjoyed  immortal  moments  can  reproduce  them." 
Three  we  have  already  had ;  the  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  the 


IMMORTAL  MOMENTS. 


371 


War  of  Independence,  and  the  late  Rebellion,  each  deciding  im- 
mortal destinies.  One  more  may  be  in  store  to  decide  as  firmly 
and  finally  the  principles  of  religious  liberty  as  have  been  those 
of  political  and  material  progress.  The  ethical  constitution  to 
regulate  social  rights  an(i  secure  exact  justice  to  all  has  yet  to 
be  promulgated,  either  as  a  result  of  discussion  and  experiment, 
or  of  actual  warfare.  Great  events  form  the  character  and  sol- 
idarity of  peoples  ;  art  illustrates  them.  Our  latest  "  immortal 
moment"  has  caused  the  projection  of  innumerable  monu- 
ments to  commemorate  the  sacrifices  and  virtues  that  secured 
the  victory  for  right.  A  still  severer  struggle,  growing  out  of 
the  more  profound  instincts  of  the  soul  at  stake,  would  give  to 
art,  to  reproduce  in  material  form,  an  even  more  illustrious  mo- 
ment of  history. 

Shall  we  possess  an  art  capable  of  this?  Looking  only  at  its 
present  superficial  aspect,  its  common  range  of  motives,  its  thor- 
oughly realistic  bias  and  materialistic  treatment,  its  prevailing 
mistake  of  the  pretty-sentimental  for  the  beautiful-ideal,  its  vul- 
gar basis  of  mere  business,  the  indifference  and  ignorance  of  the 
people  at  large,  and  the  misconceptions  of  intellectual  classes 
represented  by  a  scholar  like  Theodore  Parker,  —  looking  at 
American  art  only  on  this  side,  one  might  despair  of  its  future. 
"  The  fine  arts  do  not  interest  me,"  said  Parker,  "  so  much  as 
the  coarse  arts  which  feed,  clothe,  house,  and  comfort  a  people. 
I  should  rather  be  a  great  man  as  Franklin  than  a  Michael  An- 
gelo ;  nay,  if  I  had  a  son  I  should  rather  see  him  a  mechanic, 
who  organized  use,  like  the  late  George  Stephenson  in  England, 
than  a  great  painter  like  Rubens,  who  only  copied  beauty." 

Esthetic  culture  only  can  remedy  these  deficiencies,  and  open 
the  senses  of  all  classes  to  the  efficacy  of  art  as  a  potent  civilizer 
and  dispenser  of  happiness.  If  every  painter  were  a  Rubens  in 
selection  and  treatment  of  topics,  there  might  be  some  force  to 
the  point  of  Parker,  for  he  painted  but  little  that  is  calculated 
to  inspire  the  mind  with  lofty  sentiment  or  refined  pleasure.  He 
was  chiefly  a  painter  of  vanities  for  courts,  academic  sacred  art 
for  a  degenerate,  persecuting  church,  and  coarsenesses  for  the 
populace.  Even  he  created  more  than  he  "  copied  "  beauty,  such 
as  it  was.  But  his  standard  of  beauty,  low  and  sensual  as  it 
undoubtedly  is,  has  a  charm  for  many  minds  incapable  of  being 
touched  by  anything  purer  and  higher,  and  which  serves  to  raise 
them  aesthetically  and  intellectually  somewhat  above  their  natu- 
ral material  level  of  thought  and  action.    Indeed,  we  may  test 


372  ISSUE  BETWEEN  THE  MATERIAL  AND  SPIRITUAL. 


the  fallacy  of  the  argument  of  Parker  on  its  own  basis  of 
use. 

Which  is  most  useful  to  man,  that  which  adds  to  his  physical 
comfort  or  mental  and  spiritual  welfare  ?  This  is  the  real  issue 
between  representative  men  of  the  extremes  of  utilitarianism 
and  sesthetics,  like  Franklin  and  Michael  Angelo.  I  endorse 
most  comprehensively  the  value  of  the  coarse  arts  "  that  "  feed, 
clothe,  house,  and  comfort "  peoples,  and  rejoice  in  the  advent  of 
each  benefactor  in  their  line.  But  can  an  improved  stove,  cheaper 
bread,  handier  building  materials,  more  rapid  locomotion,  or  any 
of  the  multiform  results  of  our  laws  on  patents,  do  for  the  mind 
what  the  fine  art  of  a  Michael  Angelo  does  ?  The  one  is  a 
fresh  convenience  to  the  body,  easily  rejDlaced  or  readily  for- 
gotten. Purely  material  in  structure  and  ap23lication,  it  has  no 
direct  connection  with  the  soul,  which  lives  as  serenely  in  its 
immortal  atmosphere  without  the  physical  object  as  with  it. 
But  the  fine  art  that  gave  us  Leonardo's  "  Last  Supper  ; "  Raph- 
ael's "  Madonna  del  Sisto  ;  "  the  "  Eve  "  and  "  St.  Sebastian  "  of 
Sodoma;  the  heavenly  hosts  of  Fra  Angel ico ;  the  revelations 
of  the  misery  of  sinners  by  Luca  Siguorelli  and  Orgagna ; 
the  sympathy  with  despairing  labor  that  Jules  Breton  shows ; 
the  symbolism  and  conscience  of  Holman  Hunt ;  the  good  cheer 
and  gush  of  human  emotions  that  Millais  puts  into  his  pic- 
tures ;  the  lofty  idea,  in  plastic  form,  of  Africa  awakening  to  a 
new  life,  essayed  by  Anne  Whitney ;  the  robust  truth  of  form 
and  character  of  Ward ;  the  passionate  glow  of  suggestive  color 
of  Inness ;  all  these  and  their  like  comfort  the  mind.  Did  not 
Parker's  own  Teacher  say,  referring  to  the  excessive  material- 
ism of  his  times,  "  Take  no  thought  for  your  life  what  ye 
shall  eat  or  what  ye  shall  drink  ;  nor  yet  for  your  body  what 
ye  shall  put  on.  Is  not  the  life  more  than  meat  and  the  body 
more  than  raiment  ?  "  "  Seek  ye  Jirst  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness." 

Ideas  and  emotions  once  received  into  the  soul  are  a  constit- 
uent part  of  it  forever.  Their  superiority  of  use,  therefoi'e,  is 
as  incontestable  as  their  origin  and  office  are  nobler  than  those 
of  tangible  objects  that  administer  only  to  the  physical  well- 
being.  Socrates  could  command  but  a  mite  of  worldly  re- 
sources, had  not  a  patented  object  in  his  mean  habitation,  never 
heard  of  steam,  the  telegraph,  or  cheap  clothing  and  fuel  for  the 
million,  but  he  left  a  legacy  of  mental  and  moral  riches  to  his 
fellow  men,  such  as  in  comparison  makes  all  that  the  countless 


WHAT  FINE  ART  DOES. 


373 


treasure  of  the  Rothschilds  can  buy,  seem  but  poverty  itself.  If 
access  to  the  soul  be  shut  out  by  over  service  and  luxury  to 
the  body,  fine  intellectual  appeals  fall  on  organizations  too  cal- 
lous to  heed  them.  The  distinction  of  offices  between  him 
who  works  only  for  the  physical  wants  and  he  who  administers 
to  the  growth  of  the  soul,  is  indeed  a  marked  one.  I  might  add 
that  fine  art  reacts  even  more  conspicuously  on  the  material 
prosperity  of  a  nation  than  the  "  coarse  arts  "  do  on  the  finer. 
It  would  require  the  cost  of  many  railroads  or  cotton  mills  to 
buy  up  the  fine  art  of  Italy  as  an  investment,  because  of  its 
being  a  vast  productive  capital,  supporting  a  large  number  of 
people,  and  adding  yearly  to  the  accumulative  public  wealth  with 
but  little  outlay  to  keep  it.  Improved  machinery  and  locomo- 
tion cheapen  articles  of  common  consumption  and  promote  circu- 
lation. Fine  art  galleries  do  as  much,  and  help  the  buying  ca- 
pacity of  the  cities  where  they  exist.  I  should  consider  these 
facts  unnecessary  to  present,  were  not  so  many  otherwise  intelli- 
gent persons  deluded  by  the  apparent  common  sense  of  the 
Parkerian  theory  of  use,  which  is  sheer  foolishness.  In  favor  of 
the  spread  of  fine  art  in  America  we  have  a  fresh  aesthetic  con- 
stitution and  temperament,  the  increasing  passion  of  decoration, 
ornament,  and  festivals;  a  keen  native  instinct  for  color  and 
form;  the  patriotic  desire  to  commemorate  public  men  and 
events;  a  vast  wealth,  each  year  more  liberally  given  to  benefi- 
cent purposes  by  living  benefactors  ;  increasing  means  of  culture ; 
a  juster  appreciation  of  national  defects  and  deficiencies  in  art , 
an  intenser  spiritual  apprehension  of  life,  arising  from  the  varied 
religious  agitations,  as  an  offset  to  the  redundant  realism  founded 
on  rapid  material  progress,  and  above  all,  the  growing  recogni 
tion  of  humanity  at  large  as  the  true  object  of  effort,  to  make 
the  earth  more  pleasant  for  man's  temporary  abode  while  school- 
ing for  a  higher  existence.  The  passion  of  the  Greek  for 
beauty  made  his  art  beautiful,  just  as  the  emotional  fervor  of  the 
mediaevalist  made  his  spiritual.  We  are  not  called  to  repeat 
either  Minervas,  Venuses,  Queens  of  Heaven,  or  any  of  the 
effete  forms  of  effete  mythologies,  but  to  create  anew  according 
to  more  advanced  notions  of  heroisms,  celestial  and  mundane. 
Each  after  its  kind  in  art ;  realism,  or  "  the  glory  of  the  terres- 
trial," as  St.  Paul  defines  the  idealisms  of  earth,  and  "  the  glory 
of  the  celestial  "  those  of  heaven.  "  As  we  have  borne  the  image 
of  the  earthly,  we  shall  also  bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly." 
The  artist  should  beware  of  confounding  the  spiritual  in  art 


374 


THE  COMING  AMERICAN  SCHOOL. 


with  the  realistic.  Both  are  legitimate  phases.  Only,  however, 
as  we  are  able  to  make  art  appear  immortal  and  incorruptible 
do  we  raise  it  to  the  standard  of  the  just  made  perfect.  The 
American  school  will  be  born  of  our  own  material  and  spiritual 
life ;  our  own  faith  in  and  sacrifices  for  humanity  ;  and  of  those 
profound  social,  political,  and  religious  convictions  that  make  up 
a  religion  of  the  heart,  whose  fruit  shall  be  the  divinely  an- 
nounced "  Peace  and  Good-will "  of  Bethlehem. 


INDEX. 


ARTISTS  AND  WORKS  OF  ART  CITED  IN  THIS  VOLUME. 


JEsop,  bust  of,  30. 

"  Ajax  and  Medea,"  21. 

Albano,  217. 

Albert  Durer,  140, 186. 

Altamura,  168. 

(cited)  "  Destruction  of  the  Cimbri 
by  Marius." 

Andrea  del  Sarto,  231,  252. 

Andreoli,  Giorgio  (see  Giorgio,  Maes- 
tro.) 

Angelo,  Michael,  6,  46,  73,  83,  91,  140, 
307,  311,  349,  372. 

(works  cited)  "Night  and  Day," 
"II  Penseroso,"  "Duke  Guliano," 
"  Moses,"  "  Bacchus,"  "  The  Prison- 
ers," "Last  Judgment,"  "Frescoes 
of  the  Vatican,"  "Fortune,"  "Mes- 
siah," "  Almighty,"  "  Leda." 

"  Antinoiis"  of  the  Capitol,  66. 

Antonella  da  Messina,  347. 

Apelles.  18,  21,  200. 

Apollo.  23,  29,  65. 

Aristides,  21. 

Apollodorus,  133. 

Ary  SchefFer,  248,  250. 

(cited)  "  Francesca  da  Rimini." 

Athlete  (of  the  Vatican),  30. 

Auchenback,  224. 

Babcock,  "William,  294. 

Bacchus  (Leucotea  and  Ninf^),  23,  71. 

Ball,  Thomas,.  319. 

(cited)  Equestrian  statue  of  Wash- 
ington. 

Bastianini,  171,  358. 

(cited)  Bust  of  Benivieni. 

Baudry,  260,  261. 
(cited)  "  Diana." 


Beltraffio,  361. 

Benvenuti,  his  frescoes,  169. 

Bernini,  71,  305. 

Bierdstadt,  298,  305. 
(cited)  "  Rocky  Mountains." 

Billings,  Hamatt,  302. 
(cited)  "  Plj'^mouth  Monument." 

Blake,  William,  6,  205,  318. 

(cited)  The  "Grave,"  "Sons  of 
God,"  "Morning  Stars,"  "Ancient 
of  Days,"  "  Satan,"  the  "  Spirit," 
"Crucifixion,"  "Jerusalem." 

Bonheur,  Auguste,  272. 

Bonheur,  Rosa,  248. 

Botticelli,  363. 
(cited)  "  Madonna  and  Child." 

Boucher,  6,  241,  242. 

Bourdon,  Sebastian,  237. 

Boun  Tiyo,  222. 

Brackett,  319. 
(cited)  Bust  of  John  Brown. 

Bradford,  William,  298. 

Bramante,  125. 

Breton,  Jules,  266-8,  372. 
(cited)  "  Evening,"  "  The  Reapers." 

Brown,  310. 

(cited)  Equestrian  statue  of  Wash- 
ington. 

Browne,  Henrietta,  264. 

Brunelleschi,  124. 

Buonarotti  (see  Angelo). 

Burci,  Emelio,  363.  • 

Cacini,  302. 

(cited)  Statue  of  St.  Alessio. 
Calame,  273. 
Cano,  177. 
Carbarel,  268. 


376 


INDEX. 


(cited)  "  Expulsion  of  Adam  and 

Eve  from  Paradise." 
Carlo  Dolce,  6. 
Carracci,  Agostino,  69. 

(cited)  "  St.  Jerome." 
Carracci  the,  141. 
Carravaggio,  237. 
Cellini,  Benvenuti,  168,  282. 
Cesare  da  Sesto,  361. 
Chantrey,  195. 
Chaudet,  282. 

Cheou-lao,  god  of  longevity,  229. 
"  Chimera,"  the  Etruscan,  48. 
Church,  William,  224,  298. 

(cited)  "Niagara,"  "Heart  of  the 

Andes." 
Cimabue,  361. 

Claude  Lorraine,  6,  232,  236,  300. 
Clouet,  Fran9ois,  231. 
Cole,  294. 
Compte,  258. 

Confucius,  bronze  statuette,  312. 
Conolly  P.,  318. 

(cited)  group  of  "  Death  and  Honor." 
Copley,  294. 
Cornelius,  189. 
Corot,  273,  299. 
Correggio,  83,  88,  141,  200. 
Corti,  174. 

(cited)  The  "  Devil"  in  sculpture. 
Courbet,  274. 
Cousin,  Jean,  232. 

(cited)  "  Last  Judgment." 
Couture,  254. 

(cited)  "  Romans  of  the  Decadence." 
Craig,  318. 

(cited)  "Vanishing  of  Illusions  of 

YoutU." 
Crawford,  313. 

(cited)  Statue  of  "  Liberty." 
Credi,  Lorenzo  di,  363. 

(cited)  "  Annunciation." 

Daphne  (and  Apollo),  72. 

Daubigny,  272. 

David,  Louis,  244. 

Decamps,  245,  249. 

Delacroix,  248,  256,  357. 
(cited)  "  Apollo  and  Python,"  "  Mas- 
sacre of  Scio,"  "Charon's  Bark," 
his  frescoes. 


Delaroche,  248,  250. 

"  Descent  of  Ulysses  into  Hell,"  21. 

Desgoffe,  264. 

Desportes,  242. 

Diaz,  272. 

Dionysius  (see  Bacchus). 

Domenichino,  385. 

Donatello,  82,  170,  306. 
(cited)  "  St.  George." 

Dor^,  6, 141,  223,  274. 
(cited)  "  Spanish  Gypsy,"  "  Wander- 
ing Jew,"  "Bible,"  "Don  Quixote," 
"  Contes  Drolatiques,"  "Atala,"  etc. 

Duprd,  170. 
(cited)  "  Pieta,"  "  Cain,"  "Abel." 

Durer  (see  Albert  Durer). 

Eastlake,  Sir  Charles,  358. 

Farrar,  294. 
Fedi,  168. 

(cited)  "  Rape  of  Polyxena." 
Flandrin,  Hippolyte,  his  frescoes,  248, 

251. 
Flaxman,  195. 
Fleiiry,  248,  249. 
"  Flora,"  of  Naples,  65. 
Fontana,  335. 
Era  Angelico,  47,  70,  80. 
Frere,  265. 
Frith,  202,  305. 

(cited)   "Derby  Day,"  "Railway 

Station." 
Fromentin,  264. 
Furness,  294. 

Gainsborough,  200. 
Gariod,  Baron  Hector,  361. 
Gellee  (see  Claude  Lorraine). 
Gerard,  245. 

(cited)  "Psyche." 
G^ricault,  245'. 

fcited)  "  Wreck  of  the  Medusa." 
Gerome,  258. 

(cited)    "  Siamese  Ambassadors," 

"  Augurs,"  "  Phryne,"  "  King  Can- 

daules,"  "  Almeh,"  "Alcibiades  with 

Lais." 
Ghiberti,  81. 

(cited)  Gates  of. 
Ghirlandajo,  Dominico,  his  frescoes, 

82,  252,  306. 


INDEX. 


377 


Gibson,  195. 

Giorgio,  Maestro,  334.  335,  360. 
Giorgione,  Barbarelli,  253,  354. 

(cited)  "  Malatesta  and  the  Pilgrim." 
Giottino,  170. 

(cited)  Tomb  of  Ubertino  di  Bardi. 
Giotto,  44,  81,  140,  314. 
Giovanni  di  Bologna,  71. 
Girodet,  247. 

(cited)  "  Deluge,"  "  Atala." 
Gladiator  (the  Dying),  62. 
Glycdre,  portrait  of,  21. 
Goujon,  282. 

(cited)  "  Diana." 
Gould,  Thomas,  174,  318. 

(cited)  Busts  of  Christ,  Satan,  statue 

of  "West  Wind." 
Greenough,  Horatio,  291,  294. 
Greuze,  Jean  Baptiste,  242. 

(cited)    "  Malediction,"     "  Broken 

Pitcher,"  "  Sin  Punished." 
Gros,  246. 

(cited)  "  Battle  of  Eylau,"  "  Plague 

at  Jaffa." 

Grotesque,  heathen  and  Christian,  69. 

Harding,  291. 

Hay,  Mrs.  Benham,  213. 

(cited)  The  "  Florentine  Procession." 
Hereford,  Marquis  of,  359. 
Hogarth,  201. 

Holbein,  Hans,  31, 140,  187. 

llomer,  Winslow,  297. 

Hosmer,  Harriet,  308. 
(cited) '-Zenobia,"  "Puck,"  "Ben- 
ton," "Faun." 

Hotchkiss,  300. 

Houdon,  283. 

Hunt,  Holman,  212,  361,  372. 

(cited)  "Finding  in  the  Temple," 
"  Light  of  the  World,"  letter  of. 

Hunt,  William,  English  painter,  212. 

Hunt,  William,  American  painter,  294, 
298. 

(cited)  Portraits. 

Inness,  294,  372. 

Ingres,  248. 
(cited)  "  Roger,"  his  cartoons,  "  Ho- 
mer Deified." 

Jackson,  310. 


(cited)  Allegorical  group  for  Croton 

Reservoir. 
Jalysus,  the  hunter,  21. 
Jebis,  Japanese  Neptune,  229. 
Johnson,  Eastman,  297. 
Jouvenot,  234. 

(cited)  "  Descent  of  the  Cross." 

Kaulback,  189. 

La  Farge,  294. 
^  Lambinet,  272. 
Lambron,  268. 

(cited)  "  Virgin  and  Child  Jesus." 
Landseer,  203. 
Laokoon,  61. 
Lar,  26. 
Le  Brun,  238. 
Le  Brun,  Madame,  245. 
L'Hariden,  270. 
Leech,  204. 
Leighton,  212. 
Lely,  Sir  Peter,  198. 
Leonardo,  6,  21,  31,  83, 140,  200,  311, 

354,  360. 

(works  cited)  "  Jaconda,"  "  The  Last 
Supper,"  "  Leda,"  "  St.  Catherine," 
"  St.  Jerome,"  "  Madonna  and 
Child." 

Leslie,  204,  294. 

Leys,  345. 

Le  Sueur,  233, 235. 

Leutze,  298. 
(cited)  Fresco  of"  Westward  Ho." 

Lippo,  Fra  Fillipo,  363. 
(cited)  "  St.  Jerome." 

Lo  Spagna,  363. 
(cited)  "  Sacra  Familia." 

Lucca  della  Robbia,  82, 170,  306,  332. 
(cited)  Tomb  of"  Frederigo,"  sculp- 
tures in  the  Uffizi. 

Luini,  Bernardino,  349,  354,  361,  362. 
(cited)  "  Holy  Family." 

Lysippus,  30,  31. 

Manet,  269. 

(cited)  "  Olympia,"  "Jesus Mocked." 
Mapin,  280. 
Marochetti,  195. 
Masaccio,  81. 


3T8 


INDEX. 


Menelaus  and  Helen,  Etruscan  bas-re- 
lief, 72. 
Mercury,  71. 
Merle,  266. 

Meissonnier,  258,  259. 

Migliarini,  Professor,  361. 

Mignard,  Pierre,  238. 

Millais,  212,  372. 

(cited)  "  Sower  of  the  Seed." 

Millet,  266,  267. 

Mills,  Clark,  310. 

(cited)  Equestrian  statue  of  Washing- 
ton. 

Modesty,  statue  of,  30. 
Moore,  Charles,  294. 
Moore,  Morris,  345. 
Morales,  177. 
Moreau,  Woolsey,  359. 
Morelli,  171. 
MuUer,  257. 

(cited)  "  Call  of  the  Condemned." 
Murillo,  141,  177,  179,  347. 
"  Muse  of  Cortona,"  18. 

Niccola  Pisano,  81. 
Niobe,  group  of,  68. 

Oggione,  Mario  d',  361. 
Oksai,  222. 
Orsay,  Count  d',  340. 
Orgagna,  44,  95,  170. 

(cited)  Tomb  of  Nicolo  Acciajuoli. 
Oudry,  241. 
Overbeck,  189. 

Page,  William,  200,  294. 

Palissy,  333. 

Parrhasius,  21,  70. 

Paul  Potter,  182. 

(cited)  "La  Vache  que  p  " 

Peale,  Rembrandt,  294. 

Perugino,  82,  160,  347. 

Phallus,  26. 

Phidias,  18,  29,  32,  65. 

(cited)  Statues  of  Jupiter,  Minerva, 
"  Elgin  Marbles,"  Theseus. 

Pickersgill,  340. 

Piero  della  Francesca,  82,  his  frescoes, 

158,  206. 
Pilon,  282. 
Pindar,  34. 

PoUajuoli,  Antonio,  361. 


(cited)  "  Kape  of  Dejanira." 

Poussin,  Nicholas,  233,  299. 

(cited)  "  Judgment  of  Solomon," 
"Adulterous  Woman,"  "  Holy  Fam- 
ily," etc. 

Powers,  Hiram,  64,  302,  305. 

(cited)  Panoramic  Hell,  "  Greek 
Slave,"  "  Webster." 

Pradier,  282. 

Praxiteles,  his  nude  Venus,  33. 

Primaticcio,  231.  ^ 

Protogenes,  21. 

Prud'hon,  245. 

Puget,  Pierre,  283. 

Punch,  204. 

Pyrecius,  28. 

Quanwero,  229. 

Raphael,  6,  31,  82, 140,  299,  347,  372. 
(works  cited)   "  Galatea,"  "  Cupid 
and  Psyche,"  "  Marsyas,"  his  Ma- 
donnas, Bible  stories,    "  Ezekiel," 
"  St.  John,"  "  St.  Margaret." 

Razzi,  42,  92,  140,  161,  361. 
(cited)  "St.    Sebastian,"  "Eve," 
"  P4)iphany." 

Rembrandt,  141,  182. 
(cited)  "  Guard  House." 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  199. 

Ribot,  269. 

Rimmer,  Dr.,  302. 
(cited)  Statue  of  Hamilton. 

Rio,  A.  F.,  362. 

Rosa  (see  Salvator). 

Rosetti,  Dante,  212. 

Rousseau,  Philippe,  264. 

Rousseau,  Theodore,  272. 

Rubens,  141,  179,  182,  371. 
(cited)  "Rural  Fete,"  Allegories  in 
the  Louvre. 

Salvator,  Rosa,  130,  236. 
San  Gallo,  125. 
Sano  di  Pietro,  360. 
Sansovino,  125. 
Sauvegeot,  M.,  359. 
Scarabeus,  26. 
Scheffer,  261. 

(cited)  "Henry  H.  Fete." 
Schreyer,  263. 

(cited)  "Artillery  Charge." 


INDEX, 


379 


Settignano,  171. 
Sigalon,  238. 

(cited)  "  Vision  of  St.  Jerome." 
Signol,  268. 

Signorelli,  Luca,  44,  363,  372. 

(cited)  "  Adoration  of  the  Magi." 
Silence,  statue  of,  30. 
Sneyders,  203. 
Sodoma  (see  Razzi). 
Solaris,  361. 

Stebbins,  Miss,  174,  302. 
(cited)    The    "Devil,"  "Horace 
Mann." 

Stor5^  WiUiam,  295,  303,  311,  312. 
(cited)  "Cleopatra,"  "Medea," 
"Judith,"  "Sphinx,"  "Sappho," 
"Saul,"  "African  Sibyl,"  "Deli- 
lah," "  Quincy,"  "  Everett,"  busts 
of  "  Brownings,"  "  Chief  Justice 
Story." 

Street,  Academy  of  Fine  Art,  New 

Haven,  364. 
Sturgis,  Russell,  Jr.,  343. 
Stuart,  294. 
Sully,  294. 

Telekles,  295. 

Tenerani,  89. 
(cited)  "Angel"  of  the  Minerva, 
"  Descent  from  the  Cross." 

Theodorus,  296. 

Tiepolo,  298. 

Titian,  6,  31,  83,  186. 
(cited)  "Venus,"  portraits  of  Canaro, 
"  the  Unknown  of  the  Pitti,"  "  Peter 
Martyr." 

"  Torso  "  of  the  Vatican,  309. 

Torso  de  Belvidere,  66. 

Troyon,  248. 

Trumbull,  294. 

Turner,  6,  31,  141,  215. 
(cited)  "  Ulysses  deriding  Polyphe- 


mus," "  Dragon  of  the  Hesperides," 
"Angel  standing  in  the  Sun,"  "  Cross- 
ing the  Brook,"  "Old  Tem^raire," 
"Burial  of  Wilkie." 

Ugobaldi,  355. 
Ulysses,  bas-relief,  72. 
Ussi,  167. 

(cited)  "  Expulsion  of  the  Duke  of 

Athens  from  Florence." 

Valentin.  237. 
Vanloo,  241. 
Vanderlyn,  294. 
Van  Eyck,  259. 
Vedder,  Elihu,  297,  318. 
Vela,  174. 

(cited)  "  Dying  Napoleon." 
Velasquez,  31,  141,  177,  179. 
Venus  de  Milo,  65. 
"  Venus  "  of  the  Tribune,  65. 
Venus  and  Mars,  71. 
Vernet,  Horace,  248. 
Vernet,  Joseph,  242. 

(cited)  "  Marseilles." 
Veronese,  Paul,  242. 
Vinci,  da  (see  Leonardo). 
Volunni,  tomb  of,  44. 

Ward,  ,  310,  372. 

Watteau,  241,  242. 
Wedgewood,  387. 
West,  Sir  Benjamin,  291. 
Whistler,  248. 
Whitney,  Anne,  372. 

(cited)  "  Africa." 
Wilkie,  203. 
Winterhalter,  265. 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  125. 

Xanto,  335. 
Zeuxis,  6,  21. 


I 


